


Sensational

by agentaace



Category: Homestuck, Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Betty Crocker Conspiracies, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Guns, Mind Control, Multi, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, anyways a Sense8 AU, basically they're all connected psychically, honestly you dont need to know what homestuck is either, nobody is related to anybody, pairings/characters to be added as they appear, trans characters written by trans author, you dont need to know what sense8 is to read this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 15:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 73,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentaace/pseuds/agentaace
Summary: Eight strangers from all around the world find that they are psychically connected and are part of a subset of humans called Sensates. Which, you know, is great and totally won't lead to any consequences on a global scale. Nah, this can only be a good thing. Other clusters running around, tricky home lives, shady organizations, mind control, what could possibly go wrong?Happy 4/13~





	1. Groundwork

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go, strap in lads

#### Part 1- John

Today is the 13th of April, 2012, and it just so happens to be John Egbert’s sixteenth birthday. Currently he stands in a small grocery store on an errand to buy cake mix, which he knows is an obvious distraction so that his dad and nanna can decorate the house while he’s gone. He’ll come home later and pretend to be surprised at the balloons and presents, and then they’ll bake the cake together, just like they’ve done every year previous. Now, if only all the brands here weren’t Betty Crocker!

Taken by a sudden moment of passionate anger towards the brand, he reaches out and flicks the red spoon logo with a finger, frowning at it. Yeah, that’ll show her. The batterwitch herself might not be able to feel his anger from over in Japan or Greece or Brooklyn wherever she’s living at the moment, but maybe, just maybe, her day will be a little worse. Sweet vengeance. The best birthday gift of all.

That having been done, John breathes a sigh of defeat and picks up the very same box he assaulted. It’s some fancy chocolate flavor, it’ll do. He’s really caught up in his one man battle against the clutches of capitalism, and he doesn’t notice the girl standing next to him eyeing him with a curious gaze.

The girl coughs politely into her hand, and John startles, turning to look at her while somehow managing not to drop the cake mix. “Oh, um, hi! Didn’t see you there!”

The girl waves a hand dismissively, not annoyed or anything. She gestures to the box. “Is it your birthday?” she asks. She’s got golden-blonde hair that reaches just below her chin, held out of her eyes in a black headband, and she wears a black cardigan draped over a tank top and a purple skirt that flows to just above her knees. She’s got on heavy eyeliner, and as far as John can tell with his limited cosmetic knowledge, the rest of her makeup is flawless, too. Her skin is an olive-y tan color, and her eyes, strangely enough, are a soft lilac color, matching her skirt.

“...Yeah, it is,” he says, surprised. The way that she looks at him makes him a little uneasy, and how could she have known that, anyway? He’s buying cake mix. That could mean anything. It’s a bit too lucky to be just a guess, John thinks.

The girl nods to herself, and holds out a hand. “I’m Rose Lalonde. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too?” John says awkwardly, shaking her hand. He notices that she’s a lot shorter than him. “My name’s John.” Her eyes glance down at their hands, and he hastily lets go. She smiles as if she knows something he doesn’t, and clasps her hands behind her back.

“It’s my birthday, too,” Rose tells him.

“Really?” he asks in surprise, unsure if the new context makes her question weirder or not. “Huh, that’s so weird. I’ve never met someone with the same birthday as me.”

“I’ve met a few,” she says, a thoughtful look in her eye.

A voice calls from elsewhere, shouting down, “Rose, dear, are you ready to go to lunch?” Rose and John both turn towards the stairs leading to the second floor, the direction the voice had come from.

“Yes, mother,” Rose calls back, moving in a graceful stride to pick up a small white purse from the arm of a pristine white couch, putting it over her shoulder. She looks back at John. “You can sit, if you would like,” she motions her hand to the white chair next to him.

John’s brain catches up with his eyes as they widen, and no, he’s not in the supermarket anymore. Somehow. No, he’s standing in a nicely decorated minimalistic living room, where classical music plays softly over surround sound speakers and there’s a large plush rug covering half the hardwood floor. The air has a fresh, but oddly claustrophobic feeling to it, the kind you get with artificial air freshener.

“John? Something wrong?” Rose asks, raising an eyebrow while John spins around in a quick circle taking everything in. She doesn’t look concerned at all, only curious, measuring his reactions carefully.

“Um,” John says, not sure how to put this into words. He looks down at the cake mix in his hands, wondering if he’s accidentally stolen it, somehow, and when he looks back up he sees the shelf he’d taken it from. He looks side to side once more, and sees only the normal grocery store aisles. “N-no, I just got, um, confused? Was that your mom upstairs?”

Rose smiles. “Yes, we’re going out to lunch to celebrate the day of my birth. It will be…” she trails off, frowning. “Expensive, at the least.” Her face clears again. “So, John, where are we?”

John blinks. “Is that a test? I’m fine, promise, just got, uh… No. I know where we are,” he pretends to scoff, as if insulted that she would ask, that she would think he’s crazy or something. Rose looks amused, like she’s trying not to laugh, and she might have responded if his phone hadn’t started ringing just then.

“You should take that,” Rose says, pointing to his pocket. She’s still got the little purse hanging at her hip, so John isn’t sure what he hallucinated and what he didn’t, anymore. Was he hallucinating? The ringtone goes on a bit longer before John snaps out of it and hastily shoves a hand into his pocket, answering the phone just before it missed the call.

“John? Are you still at the store?” It’s John’s dad, and he awkwardly smiles at Rose before turning away from her a half-step.

“Yes, is there anything else you need?” John asks diligently.

“Some more painkillers, if you don’t mind. I already placed an order at the pharmacy, you should be able to pick it up while you’re there.”

“Did something happen?” John asks cautiously, his worries confirmed when his dad sighs. John stands a little straighter, bracing himself for anything.

“Nanna’s just been complaining a bit,” his dad explains. That’s code for her pain’s getting worse, and it’s not that John isn’t grateful for the sugarcoating, but at the same time, it’s a little old. He’s sixteen now. He can handle it.

“Got it,” John says. “I’ll stop by the pharmacy.” His dad gives him a brief goodbye, and then the call clicks off. He looks awkwardly back at Rose, who looks like she’s pretending not to eavesdrop, but she looks guilty enough that she totally was.

“Everything okay?” she asks, concerned for real, now.

“Yep! Everything’s fine,” John says, forcing himself to smile. It’s practiced enough that it looks genuine. “Do you have to… leave for lunch?” he asks, looking back towards the stairs. There are no stairs in the store. He can see stairs. He can see white couches, and the ornate rug, and smell the artificial air. He can see a shelf full of Betty Crocker products, he can hear old pop songs over the bad quality store speakers. He’s going to pretend that he can’t.

Rose sighs. “I suppose so. It was nice to meet you.” She turns, pauses, and turns back, overcome with curiosity. “Really though, where are we?” He almost protests again but she cuts him off. “No, just, are we in America, at least? What state?”

“Um, yeah, Washington.”

“D.C.?”

“No, Washington state. ...Are  _ you _ okay?” John asks, concerned for her now.

“Yes,” she brushes off the question. “But in the spirit of fair play,” she gestures to the window, the one in the living room, and he’s not sure how he knows that but he does, “that’s New York, out there. In case you were wondering.”

Her mother calls again for her again, and Rose gives him an apologetic smile, and then vanishes.

John’s just going to… forget that happened. And he’s going to go to the pharmacy, and buy his cake, and go home. He’ll think about it later, when he’s got time, or maybe never. Maybe he’ll never see that strange girl again, and maybe he’ll never speak of this.

John does so and then catches a bus back home. He pushes open the front door, calling out, “I’m home!” True to form, there are blue and green balloons littering the ceiling of the living room, and a small pile of presents sit on the coffee table. He gives those an appreciative nod in approval as he passes, and continues on his way.

His dad pokes his head out from the kitchen, greeting him with a wave. But instead of going straight there, he makes a detour to the door next to the kitchen, where there once was a study. Now the desk and the piano have been replaced with a bed, racks of medical supplies sitting beside it. John’s nanna lays down on the bed, relaxing with the bed bent up to support her. As John comes in, she presses a button and the bed props her up a little more, so that she can pay better attention to her grandson.

“John!” Nanna says happily. “Did you have an alright trip?”

“I did,” John answers. “I got chocolate mousse cake for today.” He pays attention to his nanna, checking over her appearance, and she looks normal, if a bit more frail.

“Oh, how lovely,” she sighs. “Be a dear and go get your father, I want to help you bake it.”

“...Okay, nanna!” John says, hesitating first, and then rushes out of the room and straight into the kitchen. His dad is washing his hands, his white sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his tie hanging down narrowly avoiding dipping into the water. “Dad, nanna’s going to help us bake this,” he says. His dad looks a little uncomfortable for a moment, and then the expression is wiped off and replaced with a smile.

“That’s fine, we can give her her medicine and she can stay out here with us. I’ll go help her up,” he nods, leaving to do that. John busies himself with laying out their ingredients. He’s practically memorized the recipe, by now, and the task is a little  _ too _ mindless. He keeps thinking about that girl, when he’d already decided to forget her. That plan was falling apart very quickly. He wishes that his dad would move a little faster.

It seems like an eternity of focusing much harder than he needs to on the cake preparation, but soon enough Nanna is being wheeled in by his dad, oxygen tubes in her nose and her hands shaking. John smiles at her, and continues to stir the dry ingredients together in the bowl, decidedly not thinking about how she looks a little more frail than she did yesterday, adding that to everything else he’s ignoring.

####  Part 2: Rose

Today is also Rose Lalonde’s sixteenth birthday, and it is also April 13th, 2012 where she lives in Rainbow Falls, New York. But it is just after midnight, when Rose prefers to conduct her business. This so-called business mostly consists of writing about wizards, or reading, or knitting, or the occasional violin when she thinks that she can get away with it. Her mother would prefer her not to play it while she tries to sleep, but if she is passed out enough from the liquor, how would she ever know?

Tonight Rose celebrates her birthday alone while she can, for later in the day her mother would take her on some needlessly expensive outing in an attempt to buy her satisfaction. Rose has lit precisely five candles, arranged in a circle around where she sits cross-legged on the floor, sipping at a glass of stolen rosé wine.

The night’s deathly silent, the sky clear, the stars shining, the moon a perfect crescent. It’s not cold, it’s not hot, it’s everything she could have wished for her birthday. Though, she could definitely do without the migraine threatening to split open her skull. Hence, the liquor.

She flips through an open book in front of her not paying close attention, but giving her hand something to do. There are nice pictures of intricate designs and patterns to occupy her eyes, as well, though with the dim lighting some of the details are hard to make out.

Rose glances up from the floor on an instinct she does not know the source of, and sees that she is no longer alone, miraculously enough. No, now instead of empty space in her too-big room there is a short man in a white suit with accents of green marking points of interest.

She quickly stands defensively, waiting for him to make a move so that she can retaliate, but he does not move, only stands there. She takes a breath. “...Hello?” she tentatively asks.

“Hello,” the man comments neutrally, dipping his head. In this lighting Rose can’t make out any details on the face, only an eerie flickering glow from the candles casting both of their faces in shadow. There’s a pause, then he says, “I expect questions.”

“Alright, who are you?” Rose asks, taking the bait.

“Yes, that is a good first choice. But I’m afraid that it’s one I can’t answer, so you’ll have to pick again.” She can’t quite see his expression, but she gets the distinct impression that he’s smiling.

She sighs, a little frustrated, feeling less like she’s requesting information and more like she’s playing a game, only now asking on the principal of what to do when a stranger enters your room. “Then why are you here?”

“I am here to awaken you, and to answer some of your questions. Really I shouldn’t be the one doing this, but your cluster’s parent is otherwise occupied. I told her that I would act as her ambassador for now.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Now he sounds very smug, which is a word that Rose can already tell fits him very well.

Her mind hangs on the word ‘awaken’, first, not knowing what to make of the rest. “If I’m not mistaken I’m already awake right now, even if it might make more sense if I wasn’t.” She realizes that it wasn’t really a question, so she thinks for another moment before sighing in defeat. “...I don’t know what questions to ask, I’d suggest that you explain everything from the beginning. If you don’t mind.”

“I can do that,” he says with a nod and another audible smile. “I’ll start with that I’m not actually here. I’m only visiting, so I only exist in your head. If you look around, you can see where I am right now as well.” Rose takes this advice and sees that she is standing in a room decorated with green everything, furniture, walls, floors, paintings. Yet she can also still feel the small warmth from the candles at her feet, and his face is still cast in shadow.

“I’m hallucinating,” she summarizes. “And you’re not real.”

“Oh, I am real, I’m just not with you at the moment. I’d tell you where I am, but that would get me into quite a bit of trouble. But I am not here, and you are not there.” He gestures to the green room. Rose is not sure how she can tell which place he gestured to, but she can regardless.

“This is clarifying nothing. I asked you to start from the beginning,” she requests dryly.

He claps his hands together in front of him, folding down the front of his suit as well. “Alright, the beginning it is. But you’ll have to humor me,” he warns. Rose nods in agreement, being reasonably sure now that she knows he’s not actually in her bedroom and that he doesn’t pose a threat. She can afford to listen to whatever he has to say for now. “You and I are what is called  _ Homo Sensorium.  _ Meaning, not entirely human. We can do things other people cannot, such as what we are doing right now.”

“...Right. And this would be something along the lines of psychic abilities?” Rose asks, doing as he suggested and simply humoring him. She looks around again at the green room that she can see almost as if overlayed onto her own room. Distinct, yet still existing in the same place at the same time. The room offers no further answers.

“Correct! I knew you would understand best.”

She quirks her eyebrow. “As opposed to…?”

“I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.” He puts a finger to his lips, cementing her dislike of him. “I decided that at least one of your cluster should have some idea of what was happening, but I’ll leave it up to you to tell the others. It should be fun, like a scavenger hunt. There are seven others for you to connect with.”

“Cluster,” Rose repeats to herself. The man nods.

“Cluster. Try talking to one of them now, reach out.” he suggests. As he finishes saying this, he is suddenly and simply gone. Rose can no longer see the green room, and she gets the impression that once more she is alone, as if none of this interaction had taken place.

“Reach out…” she mutters under her breath. She doesn’t have the slightest idea of how to do that. She thinks through her pounding headache that she is no longer distracted from, and runs the conversation over again in her head. Cluster,  _ homo sensorium _ , parent?

She feels particularly attached to the word ‘cluster.’ From what she can gather, she presumes that this ‘cluster’ is other people who share her psychic ability. Rose decides that she would quite like to meet them.

And then she’s seeing someone else in her room, but she’s also in another room herself. A loud groan comes from her bed, and she gasps, seeing a boy lying facedown on her mattress. He’s taller than she is, not that that’s hard, but he’s all legs sprawled out in skinny jeans and a red hoodie. He’s got white-blonde hair just a few shades lighter than her own, but skin a few shades darker, and she thinks that he might be wearing sunglasses that are pressing into the pillow.

At her sharp gasp, the boy jerks up propping himself up onto his elbows. There’s a brief moment where the two merely stare at each other with wide eyes, each waiting for the other to be bold and make the first move. Still in silence, the boy cautiously turns over and sits upright, legs hanging off the edge of the bed. It’s Rose’s bed, and it’s an unfamiliar bed, and the red and purple bedspreads clash together quite vibrantly.

The silence ends up broken by the boy. “Who the fuck?” he asks, eloquently. Rose blinks in surprise, but if this is to be a confrontation then she will not be without the upper hand. She has the information, here, and she will use it.

“I could ask the same question,” she says dryly. “You’re in my bedroom, after all.” The boy opens his mouth to speak, but pauses and turns his head slowly around the room. Rose follows his motions, wondering how he can see at all through the heavy sunglasses in the darkened room(s).

Finally he gives up and lets his head hang, defeated. “My head hurts too much for this.” As if in sympathy, or a moment of unison, Rose’s temples give a twinge of pain as well. Normally she would blame it on the rosé. She smiles at him understandingly, dropping the confrontation act for now. They’re on the same page, after all. This is a lot to take in.

“Mine, too,” she agrees, an act of solidarity. She moves over to her desk, where she can also see another desk made of glass rather than wood imposed over it if she concentrates. She finds that she can switch between which room she views at will, thinking of her own room and then the boy’s in quick succession to test the theory. “Aspirin?” she asks, pulling the bottle out of a drawer and offering him some.

He cautiously reaches for the bottle, but instead of taking hold his hand fails to make contact, his finger going right through it. Rose is not surprised. He deadpans, defeated, “You’re a goddamn ghost, huh? Always figured I would be haunted someday.”

“Hmm,” Rose hums, amused, and takes the pills herself with the wine. “I thought that might happen. Though, I’m not a ghost, and neither are you. My name is Rose Lalonde.” She offers her hand to him, and he stares at it cautiously for a moment, both of them wondering if his hand will pass through hers like the bottle.

After a moment’s hesitation he takes her hand, and it feels remarkably solid. “Dave Strider,” he introduces himself. “So are you real, or not?”

####  Part 3: Dave

It’s Dave Strider’s birthday. We know this, and repeating it again would be, for lack of a better word, repetitive. Except, it technically isn’t! It’s still the 12th of April, 2012, an hour or two before midnight. Dave  _ will _ be sixteen soon, but not now. Whether or not he celebrates it is another matter entirely, which probably won’t be up to him at all.

Dave doesn’t usually wear his shades indoors, not when he’s alone at home, but tonight he has a pounding headache that he assumes is caused by there being too much light in the room. So, he’s lying facedown on his bed with the lights off and his shades pressing into the pillow so hard that they might break. It’s not helping, though. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Well, that’s what he  _ was  _ doing, until some girl appeared in his room, who may or may not have been a ghost. He asks her if she’s real, or not, wanting to get some clarification in here, for the record.

Rose frowns and thinks for a moment. “I’m real,” she begins, doing some probably ridiculous mental battle for his sake. Damn, it wasn’t that tough of a question. She looks like she gives up a half second later, though, taking a breath. “I’m just going to tell you, because I don’t know how to put this otherwise, but. We’re both psychic, to my understanding. So technically we’re both hallucinating,” Rose says. There’s a nervous edge to her voice, probably worrying that he won’t believe her. Which is entirely fair, because what she just said is completely insane, and Dave doesn’t really have to believe a single word. But he’ll go along with it for now.

“Psychic as in…?”

“Psychic as in psychic. I’m in New York at the moment, and I assume that you are not?”

“Nah, I’m from Houston.”

“Well, that’s not too far away,” Rose hums to herself. She takes another sip of wine, and Dave doesn’t know if it’s just the smell, but he feels like he can almost taste it. Not that he knows what wine tastes like in the first place.

“Are you… old enough to drink?” Dave asks hesitantly. Even though she can’t be much more than 5 feet tall, she looks like she could be anywhere between 13 and 25, a fact that is not helped by the heavy and dark makeup that she wears.

“Not legally, no. I just turned sixteen if that’s what you’re asking. And you?” she asks in return. He glances at the clock sitting on his table, flashing 11:26. Apparently he tilts his head a little or something, because she’s able to catch his look, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m fifteen.” Dave says.

“But you’ll be sixteen in less than an hour?” she asks, and Dave doesn’t respond, so she can easily deduce that she’s right. “I don’t know why it’s a secret. It’s my birthday, too, I really  _ just _ turned sixteen. I wonder if that has something to do with us being psychic?”

“Probably,” he shrugs. He doesn’t really have any other information to go off of. Then he hears a door elsewhere in the apartment loudly open and shut, and he jumps to flick on the lights. Rose watches him curiously, measuring him in a way that makes him very uncomfortable, but Dave doesn’t think that Bro will be able to see her, hopefully, so that’s one problem he doesn’t need to worry about.

“Somebody home?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Dave frowns, going back to sit on the bed and try to look casual, on his phone or something. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “Should you… hide, or something, just in case?”

“I could,” Rose nods. She moves herself so that she’s not in the doorway’s direct line of sight, tucking herself into the open closet door. She’ll be seen if Bro looks in his closet for whatever reason, but if he just pops in and out like usual he might not notice anything. The candles littering the floor might draw some attention, though, and Dave moves to pick them up. He’s not really a candle guy, he doesn’t know why these ones are just hanging out in a circle on his floor. As if answering his question, Rose calls over, “Those are mine.”

Dave looks over to her and stops his hand before he touches a candle, not really wanting to know if his hand would pass through them or not. “Oh, cool, that makes more sense.” Now he can hear footsteps right outside of his door, so rather than pretending to be casually chilling on the bed he sits down on the ground. Much less suspicious.

The door opens and Bro enters the room, wordlessly tossing Dave a bottle, to his confusion. He examines the bottle, seeing that it’s definitely beer, and looks back up at Bro in poorly hidden confusion. Bro says, “Happy birthday.”

“Uh, thanks?” Dave says awkwardly, waiting on more explanation. He shoots a look to Rose, who is still there, watching with open curiosity.

“I’m taking you to the club I’m working tonight. It’ll be a fun, rite of passage thing. Go wild,” Bro says, his voice completely monotone. “We leave in five.” With that Bro backs out and closes the door behind him.

“And he is your…” Rose says, coming out of the closet. She stares at the door Bro left from, and slowly looks back at Dave.

“My older brother. I call him Bro.”

“Is that his name?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. She watches him for a moment, not knowing if he’s kidding or not. Which is exactly the impression that he wanted to make, so mission accomplished.

“Well it looks like you’re going out soon. Would you like me to leave?” she asks. Dave looks around at Rose’s room, quiet, neat, candles and a bottle of wine. It’s too quiet, too staged looking.

“It looks like you’re having a real party up in New York, so if you need to get back to that I totally understand. But if you’d rather go to a club with Bro and I and have the time of your life, I’ll leave the psychic link open. ...Assuming that’s something we can do.”

Rose looks surprised, considering his offer carefully. Dave feels thankful that his shades are on, because despite any outward appearance he’s a little anxious about what she’ll say. If she rejects him, of course, that would probably be awkward as hell. But if she says yes, he’ll have a psychic buddy to hang out with. It’s not like he feels super jazzed about going to a club and drinking in the first place, but he might feel somewhat safer with Rose looking out for him. From his first impressions, she seems responsible, if a little fancy. And though the wine bottle’s halfway empty, she seems fine, so this is a girl who can hold her liquor.

“I think I can spare to be pulled away for a few hours,” she finally agrees, after what both feel like was way too long of a silence. Dave lets a hint of a smile break through, and holds up the unopened bottle.

“Cheers, then. Happy birthday to us,” he says. She clinks her glass against the bottle and takes another drink, while Dave pantomimes it. He wouldn’t ever tell anyone, but he’s not sure how to open it. So. Hopefully pretending to drink was ironic enough for now. Regardless, he makes a face of disgust, and then surprise.

“Something wrong?” she asks, finishing her drink and putting her glass down, tilting her head at him in question.

“I think I can taste your wine,” Dave says, frowning. He smacks his lips. “It’s disgusting.” Rose’s eyes alight with interest, and she takes another sip, and Dave winces again. “Stop, that’s nasty. Why can I taste your wine?”

“Psychic connection?” Rose shrugs, smirking. “Good to know, for future reference, wouldn’t you say?”

Dave rolls his eyes, not that she can see it, and sets the still sealed bottle he’s holding carefully on his desk, and then grabs his wallet and headphones, shoving them into the pockets of his hoodie. He looks over at Rose, who’s just wearing like a black silk nightgown getup, which is either very appropriate or very inappropriate for a club, depending on her goals, he guesses. But she’s invisible if he’s figured this out right, so it shouldn’t matter what she’s wearing. Probably. If only he can really see her.

“Tell me about yourself?” Rose says, sitting herself carefully on the desk while he pulls on some shoes. He glances back to her, unsure, but she seems just curious. He’d be too, and he is, because they’re both psychic and that’s weird as hell as even a concept.

“Born and raised in this apartment,” Dave shrugs. “It’s just been me and Bro as long as I can remember.”

“Parents?”

“Not as far as I know,” he shrugs again. It doesn’t bother him. “You?”

“I live with my mother in New York. I go to a private all girls school, and I like to knit and play violin.” She picks herself up and grabs the wine bottle from the floor, refilling her glass. It’s unsaid that her interests also include drinking, Dave can tell that much.

Knuckles rap on the door from the outside, so their five minutes must be up. They exchange a glance, and Dave suppresses the small surge of nerves that bubble up. He hesitates but grabs the bottle he’d been thrown earlier, making another grimace at the thought of drinking it. Dave starts towards the door, and then he can taste wine again as Rose takes another sip. On the bright side, his headache is less prominent than before, so if the wine is affecting him, then maybe the medicine is too.

“Coming?” Dave asks, turning and watching Rose sit herself down on the floor, crossing her legs under herself.

“I’m unsure of how this whole visiting thing works, as of yet. I think I’ll meditate, and go with you, otherwise I fear following you would have me leave my own room here and wander the house talking to no one,” she explains, setting the glass carefully down next to her.

“...Okay, if you say so,” he shrugs. He guesses that makes sense. Doesn’t really matter too much to him. He leaves his room, looking at her once more, and when she gestures for him to continue he closes the door behind him. He walks down the hallway, and finds Rose standing in his living room in front of him. He’d be embarrassed of the mess, seeing that the futon bed serving as their couch is covered in disarrayed blankets and there are empty pizza boxes on the floor, but he figures there’s no secrets between psychics. Fuck, that was a weird thought.

“So that worked,” she nods to him. Dave nods back to her, imperceptible, because there is a third party in the room. They both look at Bro, who is leaning with both elbows on the counter in the kitchen conjoined to the living room. “I am reasonably sure that he can’t hear me,” she says with a gesture to him.

“Ready to go?” Bro asks, giving absolutely no impression that he heard her at all. He picks up a bottle opener and holds out his hand, so Dave hands him the bottle and it is opened for him. Now he’s holding a bottle of beer, and he’s expected to drink it.

“Yeah, Dave says, and looks down at the bottle again. Rose sees his hesitation and rolls her eyes, walking over to him abruptly and takes the bottle. She takes a drink for him, and Dave forces himself not to panic, because he has absolutely no idea what this looks like to Bro. How does she even hold the bottle?

She hands it back to him with a nod, wiping her lips with the back of a hand. “Not the best, but not the worst I’ve tasted.” Dave knows, he can taste it, and he has to force himself not to grimace.

Bro’s looking at Dave for a reaction. He’s  _ only _ looking at Dave, still, and his expressionless stare hasn’t wavered. Dave nods to him, and he nods back, then heads for the door. He walks inches from Rose’s face, apparently without seeing her. Dave meets her eyes, mouths a quick ‘ _ what the fuck _ ’ and then follows Bro, Rose falling in step beside him.

“Don’t spill any in the truck, or I’ll kill you,” Bro warns without looking back.

####  Part 4: Jade

Jade Harley wakes up on her 16th birthday very excited! Would this be the day that she would experience rebirth, and finally begin her life as a Sensate? She knows that it’s more common for that to happen later in life, up to her early thirties, but there’s also reports of it happening as young as thirteen. So with any luck, sixteen will be the lucky birthday!

She cannot wait to meet her cluster. Jade looks up fondly at the scattering of drawings across one section of her bedroom wall, where she’s sketched out ideas and theories of what they might look like. There’s no way to know until she meets them, but it was always fun to think about.

As she’s done on many birthdays before this, she springs out of bed and puts a lot of effort into looking her best for a hypothetical first impression. Today, she’ll wear a blue top, and some simple cargo shorts that expose her very long brown legs. She’s just over six feet tall, and she doesn’t mind showing that off! Jade also even brushes her hair, which happens only every once in a while. It’s a long, complicated process to get the knots out of hair that reaches past her waist, tending to curl and lock together all on its own.

It’s about an hour later that she’s ready to finally take on the day. And by take on the day, she means plant herself in a room paneled with wood, facing a wall taken up by a huge glass window overlooking the ocean. Here she can meditate in the peace and quiet, and attempt to make a connection.

Outside of the door, she’s stopped by her grandfather. “Going to try again, this year?” he asks, good-naturedly. “You know it probably won’t happen anytime soon, dear.”

“But what if it does happen today?” Jade protests. Sometimes she wonders if he really wants her to be a Sensate at all. For all the research he does on the subject, he sure has a hard time having any faith in her. Her grandpa just laughs and ruffles his hand over the top of her head, leaving her to frantically smooth it down again. She’d just brushed it!

“Happy birthday, Jade. Let me know if today really is the day. And don’t forget to start packing for Japan!”

Jade totally did  _ not  _ forget about their upcoming trip in the anxiety and excitement about her birthday. No, sir, she’s already started! But Jade also knows that she’s a very bad liar, so rather than try to convince Grandpa of this she just nods and smiles. He chuckles again and leaves her to go into the meditation room.

Today the window shows her a view of storm clouds, which she hopes isn’t a bad omen or something. Waves hit the rocky beach down below with sprays of foam, but it hasn’t actually started raining or anything yet. It’s just overcast, which makes Jade frown. She much prefers when it’s sunny out. Hopefully it will clear up by the time she’s done in here? But who knows how long that will take.

Jade sits down cross legged on the floor, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She thinks about the other Sensates Grandpa has talked to, how she’d heard that they extend their awareness until they are no longer only themselves. They’re a whole group of people, sharing one soul, for lack of a better word. If she ‘opens her mind’, then she’ll be able to do it, once she’s experienced her rebirth.

Nothing happens for the first few moments. But after that, a headache slams into her with the force of a train, making her fall out of her still position in shock. She winces and puts her hands on her head, pushing into her temples. It doesn’t seem to help.

Through the pain she manages the coherent thought of,  _ They said it starts with a headache _ . Dimly she can feel some excitement, but this is waaay more intense than she’d thought it would be! She keeps her eyes closed, suddenly even just the dim light from outside is too much. She lets out a low whine and rolls so that she’s laying on her stomach.

“Miss?”

Jade groans again, and cracks open her eyes. There’s a boy standing in front of her that she’s never seen before. He’s got dark brown hair messily sticking up in the air that matches both his skin and his eyes, and pajamas that look like they’re from the American 1940’s. In modern terms it could loosely be called a white romper, but it’s clearly not a romper. Jade knows, that’s an essential part of her wardrobe. He's not wearing any socks or shoes, and his pajamas only reach about the mid-thigh, so he's exposing a ton of tanned leg, enough that Jade can tell that he runs a lot.

“Miss?” he repeats. Jade slowly sits up. He’s leaning over her with concern, squinting his eyes like Jade does when she’s not wearing her glasses.

“Oh!” Jade says, recognition lighting up in her eyes. “Hello! My name’s Jade!” She stands up and sways a bit, then once she's steady she holds out her hand, doing her very best to smile and be cheerful through the pain.

The boy hesitates for a second, but takes her hand. He seems to silently debate something in his head before saying, “English. Jake English.” Jade lets out a snort, then covers her mouth.

“Nice to meet you, Jake, where are you from?”

“Um,” Jake says, looking around. “I thought I was in New Zealand, but this does not appear to be that.” She decides that she likes his accent. It’s like if he were trying to do an English accent, but not a very good one. But maybe that’s what all New Zealanders sound like? That’s a place she hasn’t gotten to visit, yet, in her world travels.

“Yeah, welcome to Indonesia, fellow islander!”

Jakes eyes alight with interest. “Indonesia, you say? I've always wanted to visit. Which island is this?” He moves to the window to look outside at the storm clouds and gently rolling waves on the rocks.

“Lombok. I live here with my grandpa, in this research facility.” Jade gestures around the room, and the larger building as a whole. “We research science, physics mostly. Some other stuff too.”

Jake nods thoughtfully, looking around. “Alright, that's nice. I like science, too. But if you don't mind me asking… What’s going on?  _ Why _ am I in Indonesia? Who are you?” He says this with a forced casualty, like he's trying to stay calm but Jade can tell that he's bordering on panic inside. She winces, realizing she probably should have started with that. 

“It's complicated,” she begins. Jake watches her expectantly. She glances at the door, and says, “Alright, come with me, and I'll try to explain. Okay?” Jake nods, and some of his nervousness is showing now in more obvious ways, like the way his eyes and his feet have started shifting around while his hands fidget with the buttons on his shirt. But he doesn't look  _ scared _ , just nervous, so that's good. Nerves are understandable. 

Jade leads Jake out of the room, and into the hallway where the floors are tile and the walls are white and completely bare save for labels outside of each room. Jade has a short debate in her head on how to break the news gently, because even though she grew up with all of this knowledge she can see how it would be a lot for someone who's never heard of Sensates. But honesty is the best policy, and Jake seems like a tough guy, he can probably handle it. 

“You and I have psychic powers,” she says with cheer, being careful to convey that it's not a huge deal. “We’re what's called Sensates, so our minds are linked together. It's like being one person with lots of different bodies, in a way.” Jake nods along with her words, not saying anything, but his eyes are glazed over so Jade knows that he's not really understanding anything she's saying. But that's okay, he'll figure it out eventually!

“Is it only us?” he asks, being a good sport and not arguing with her. Even if he doesn't believe her it looks like he's willing to play along for now, so that's great! Jade hopes it'll be this easy with everyone, because she's still most likely the only one to have previous knowledge of Sensates.

“No, we're part of a cluster. I'm not sure how many of us there are, actually. We’ll just have to meet them and find out. I guess technically it  _ could _ just be us, clusters are typically anywhere from two to twelve members. I hope not, though.”

“How do you know all of this?” Jake asks, impressed. “I've never even heard of this Senate business before.”

“It's Sensate, first of all, and second, it's something we study at this lab. Once you know we exist and all that it's easy to tell if a kid is a Sensate, they kind of exhibit signs by the time they’re like four. You know, stuff like being able to read other people’s minds, even though that goes away pretty quick. So I've known for a super long time and I've been waiting every birthday for my rebirth.” She tosses over her shoulder, “Happy birthday, by the way!”

She sees Jake’s stopped in the middle of the hallway, his eyes closed while he runs his temples. Jade is sympathetic, her migraine hasn't dimmed at all yet either. She waits patiently for him, rocking back and forth on her heels with her hands behind her back.

Finally Jake opens his eyes and levels a hand at her. “That was a lot of terms. Please understand, I only just woke up here. If we could slow down I'd much appreciate it.”

Jade’s a little disappointed, having hoped that Jake was like-minded enough to keep up with the fast pace so that she could get into the neat science of it all. She's led him down the hallway to the Sensate research lab, but she thinks now she won't take him in there. That might be too overwhelming.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” she says. He lets out a relieved sigh. Next to Jade, the door opens, making both her and Jake jump a little. Jade’s grandpa steps out with his mug of coffee in hand, looking surprised to see her. He catches her quick look at Jake, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Today?” Grandpa asks, shocked, looking in Jake’s vague direction.

“Um, hello, sir,” Jake says, self consciously glancing down at what he's wearing. Jade giggles, making him look at her in offense.

“He can't see or hear you,” she explains to him. To her grandpa, she says, “This is Jake, he's in my cluster. Today was the day!”

####  Part 5: Jane

It’s Jane Crocker’s 16th birthday. She’s one year closer to inheriting her grandmother’s company, according to what she’d always been told, before she’d had a contender for the title. Oh, how she longs for the simple years before her little family had expanded and brought in all these new complications to what was supposed to be a straight-forward inheritance of a multi-million dollar business.

Said contender is enthusiastically waving at Jane from the sidewalk, dropping her luggage on the ground to do so. Jane smiles back, pointing her out to her driver, who nods and maneuvers the car close enough for the girl to get in.

Jane gets out of the car and is met with a bone crushing hug, which she returns with a careful pat on the back. “Hi, Feferi, how are you?” Jane asks.

“I’m great!” Feferi takes a step back, her long braids swinging out behind her. She peers around Jane to look in the car, but finds it empty. “Where’s Mom?”

Jane makes a sour face. “Busy. I’m here to pick you up instead. Shall we?” She beckons for Feferi to get into the car, while the driver puts her luggage into the trunk. They get settled in while he finishes, cool drinks available in multiple flavors. Feferi goes for the sparkling water like Jane knew she would, but Jane wouldn’t touch the stuff herself. She’ll settle for regular water, which would probably also help with her headache a bit.

She looks over and sees Feferi staring at her with her large eyes, grinning. Jane rises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Feferi takes this as her cue to jump at her and latch onto Jane’s arm, shaking her and exclaiming, “Happy birthday!”

“Oh, thank you,” Jane says, gently dislodging her arm. “Sweet sixteen?” she says, almost as a question. It wouldn’t be a big deal, but maybe it was to Feferi. This guess is proven correct as she gives Jane a big grin and then relaxes back into her seat while she taps loose rhythms on her legs to channel her excessive energy.

“Sooooo…” Feferi leads, sipping her bubbly water. “Anything… Different? Today?” Jane sighs. This, again. “Any, let’s see… Headaches? If I remember right, that’s the first sign!”

“My current headache is completely unrelated to your nonsense, Feferi,” Jane says, rubbing her temple with her free hand. The girl pouts, which is just overdramatic for an almost-legal adult, especially an heiress.

“But are you sure?” she asks. “I got mine when I was thirteen, and I know that was super early, but I feel like it should’ve happened by now!”

“I don’t think so.”

Feferi pouts with more force this time, her frown deepening as she crosses her arms and slouches. “You  _ still _ don’t believe me, do you? Well, I hope your headache  _ does _ mean it’s happening, so I can say I told you so.” Jane rolls her eyes at her step-sister, drinking more water.

“We’ll see,” she says politely. “But forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical that we’ve both got  _ magic _ powers, somehow. Isn’t it a bit coincidental that it would be the two of us, though? Can you at least admit that?”

“I get it from Mom, and I don’t know, maybe it was fate or something that she married your dad. But I’m  _ pretty _ sure you’re a Sensate, too.”

“Fef, I don’t think so.” Jane’s migraine spikes and she puts a hand to her head, wincing and muttering under her breath. “Ugh.” Feferi watches her with one raised eyebrow, as if this somehow impossibly proves her right. Jane pointedly ignores her, avoiding eye contact and staring out the window in the other direction for the majority of the rest of the drive.

“...Speaking of Mom,” Feferi says sometime later. “Is she still mad?” Jane gives her an unimpressed look, while Feferi quickly lowers her eyes and amends her statement. “Well, she probably is, I know. But has she at least cooled off a little?”

“She’s still mad,” Jane says simply, her face cold. “...Lots of people are still mad. They still think that I tried to have you killed.”

Feferi just hums in disappointment, turning to direct her attention out the window. Traffic is heavy downtown, especially the route from the airport. There are cars lining the streets on Osaka, Japan, and their limousine slows to a crawl. The sidewalks are bustling with tourists, as it is about three in the afternoon on a Friday and packs of teenagers in school uniforms wander around looking for food. Jane anxiously taps her fingers on her knee, enjoying the texture of the silk skirt but wishing that it was easier to talk to her step-sister. It used to be, once they’d gotten used to each other, but that had taken a bit of time. And not long after that Feferi had run away to  _ Argentina _ , of all places, and just… gone missing. For several months. That had been just  _ delightful _ for Jane.

Jane watches Feferi and heaves a sigh, willing her fingers to stop their tapping. Feferi was different in odd little ways, ever since then. When she had first returned home, she’d been full of fire, lashing out at her mother and to a lesser extent Jane. But the next time she’d seen Feferi, she was calmer, ready to smile and simper for the cameras again and explain the whole incident away as a simple act of teenage rebellion. Jane bought none of it.

“Are you thinking about university?” Jane asks, uncomfortable. Feferi turns and raises one eyebrow.

“I don’t really think I have much of a choice,” she says, offering a smile in good humor but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Jane closes her own eyes for a second, berating herself for the stupid question. “I’ll be eighteen soon. I’ll have to do something, don’t you think?”

Jane doesn’t like to think about her turning eighteen. In fact, she’d been dreading it for the past four years. “Yeah. It’s not like I haven’t been signed up for business school already.”

Feferi shrugs. “I’m sure Mom would love for me to go to business school. Don’t think it’ll happen, though. I don’t have the knack like you do, Jane.”

Jane knows this. The entire world knows this. There are subreddits dedicated to the subject, actually. It’s a well-known fact that Jane has been trained to own a business practically from birth, and Feferi has too, but she had no love for it. Her stepmother didn’t really approve of her humanitarian leanings, either. She has to change the subject. “Well! Nevermind, then, have you seen the trailer for the new Avengers movie?” It seemed innocuous enough.

“I have,” Feferi says, not terribly enthusiastic, but at least on board for changing the conversation. “I hope it’s good!”

She’s trying. They both are. “It should be,” Jane says, shrugging. It’s clear that neither of them really care.

They drift off into silence again. It’ll never be like it was again, it can’t be. They’ve been demoted from sisters back into merely step-sisters. Family only by circumstance, by outside forces. Jane can’t decide if they can even be friends anymore, which makes her heart twinge in disappointment. She looks over at Feferi, avoiding her gaze once more, and sighs.

When they arrive home, after the long, silent elevator ride to the penthouse, the girls’ mother is sitting in the foyer waiting for them. She stands up and rushes over to Feferi, sweeping her into an quick, tight embrace before doing the same to Jane. She then takes a few steps back and examines them, putting a finger to her lips in concentration. Jane straightens and darts a glance to Feferi, measuring her chances of winning this little onceover.

Finally their mutual mother nods, breaking out into a grin. “It’s so good to have my girls back here with me! Jane, could you give me a moment with Fef?”

“Of course,” Jane nods agreeably, reaching for Feferi’s suitcase. “I can go put this in her room-”

“Leave it!” Meenah snaps, and Jane flinches her hand back. If her step-mother’s terrifying in a good mood, she’s absolutely horrendous in a bad one. But she smiles again, “Thank you, dear.” Then she waves her hand to shoo Jane from the room.

Jane ducks her head and leaves while Meenah puts a hand on Feferi’s shoulder and guides her to the little armchairs on either side of a circular coffee table. She represses a shudder, she’s not jealous of Feferi at the moment. But somehow, Feferi looks calm, even in the face of what must be some kind of lecture. Jane knows she’d be panicking, just a bit, on the inside. Feferi looks perfectly calm.

So Jane frowns, and decides to eavesdrop just a little bit, because something’s strange. Meenah’s back is to her, and she tells Feferi, “Go ahead and get out the device.” Feferi opens her suitcase and pulls out a small golden metal tiara, the one she’d gotten on her sixteenth birthday. It’s supposed to be the latest and greatest technology from Skaianet, but it’s a bit vague on what it actually  _ does _ .

Feferi places it on her head, resting it just above her eyes, and Meenah puts on an identical one. Feferi’s eyes snap closed, and both her and Meenah go stock still, and sit in absolute silence.

“That’s fuckin’ weird,” a deadpan voice Jane doesn’t recognize says. She jumps nearly a foot in the air, and before she can check if her mother heard her she darts several steps down the hallway, out of her line of vision. Only then does she turn to see who spoke.

She turns, and has to look  _ up. _ There’s a boy nearly a foot taller than her staring at her from behind strange pointed sunglasses. He’s got blond hair slicked back, and skin paler than her own. But he’s definitely not from around there, he’s got strong features that indicate somewhere European, most likely one of the more northern countries. Jane immediately narrows her eyes at him, while he seems content to just look around in silence, expressionless. She grabs his arm and pulls him further down the hallway, and into the first open door.

She looks around the room cautiously, and notices he does the same, and seeing that they are alone in the butler’s pantry off the kitchen, Jane quickly slides the door shut. “How did you get in here? What are you doing? What do you want? Who are you?” she interrogates.

“Why don’t you tell me, Crocker?” The boy asks. Jane isn’t surprised that he knows who she is, as most people do. Her face is very recognizable. He won’t throw her off.

“You’re in  _ my _ home,” she points out. One eyebrow raises from behind his sunglasses.

“...True.”

“So  _ you  _ should be answering my questions,” Jane says after a pause, frustrated. She hears a noise from the other side of the door, and goes quiet, moving to press her ear against the door. She doesn’t hear any more noise, deciding the coast is clear, so she turns back to send another glare at the stranger.

But Jane spins around in a circle, eyes wide in disbelief, when she realizes he’s gone.

####  Part 6: Jake

When Jake English woke up today, the 13th of April, 2012, the day of his sixteenth birthday, he expected something to happen. It was supposed to be a birthday which, according to nearly every movie he’d seen, heralded the reveal of latent magical properties or better yet, the start of some grand adventure!

But he hadn’t felt different. He’d tested himself, staring intently at the ceiling willing lazer beams to shoot out of his eyes, or to see to the floor up above with some x-ray vision, but, alas. Nothing except for this blasted migraine threatening to detonate his mind from the inside out. It would have been a nice change, is all he’s saying, but he guesses the psychic thing is alright too.

All day one Jade Harley has been popping in and out of his mind, chattering on about the science of being a Sensate, as she’d called it, and confusing Jake while also distracting him from the important work he’s trying to get done! It’s not always Jade, but she’s the only one who normally sticks around for a chat. The others tend to blink in and out more, looking just as confused and lost as he feels.

But since bright and early at seven AM that morning, Jake has been sitting in his gran’s old office. There’s been phone calls upon phone calls and he’s barely had any time to breathe, but he’s gotten in some decent work today, between all the interruptions, that is. He hears a noise and almost doesn’t want to look up from the email he’s writing to see who it is this time.

Heels clack on the tile floor and he has to look. There’s a girl just a touch shorter than him standing with a stiff back and her hands folded behind herself, staring at the portrait of Judy English that stands imposingly taking up the wall. The girl is wearing a blue pantsuit, with exaggerated shoulders and an air of professionalism that looks frankly misplaced on her, she couldn’t have been older than Jake himself. But he supposes she could say the same about him. So he won’t say anything at all about it.

“This is the English Wildlife Preserve’s founder, is it not?” the girl asks, darting just a brief glance his direction. “And that would make you…?”

“Jake English, in the flesh,” Jake says, putting his elbows on the desk in front of him and folding his hands.

“The one from the posters, yes of course,” she says, and he can see a hint of a smile on her face. Jake groans and puts his face into his hands, blushing. Those posters could be a little, erm, voyeuristic, to put it plainly. Anything in the name of wildlife conservation, even at the expense of being called the world’s sweetheart. It’s only gotten worse as he’s gotten older. He doesn’t mind the modeling, he really doesn’t, but the knowing smirks he gets in every interview and public appearance really puts it into perspective.

“Yes, that would be me,” his voice is muffled a bit. She seems to hear him just fine. She turns in a slow circle, taking in the room, and her silence is a bit unnerving. “Well, now you have me at a disadvantage! Who might you be?”

She looks a bit surprised at the question, finally turning to face him fully. “Oh, of course, silly me. Jane Crocker, pleasure to meet you. Have you been briefed on the, um, situation?”

“In bits and pieces, I’m afraid, but I’ve gotten the gist I think,” Jake says, and she comes close enough to shake his hand, leaning against the desk. Jane hums in response, but now he’s got more important questions. “And you’re  _ the _ Jane Crocker, then?” He can’t put his finger on it, but she seems at the same time more and less, well, human, than he’d seen. She had the sweet persona, fitting of the baking empire she was to inherit, but there was always a striking intelligence in her eyes, which had led to many conspiracy theories on the internet. Jake had found some of those while looking into what people were saying about the preservation company, just seeing if anyone had anything interesting to say about  _ him _ , or more importantly, his gran.

“Yep! Not what you expected?” she asks, laughing. “The media really doesn’t do either of us justice, does it?” He shakes his head, glad there’s someone to laugh about it with. “What a coincidence that we share a connection like this.”

“Have you figured out what it is, exactly, yet?” Jake asks. Jade had not been the best suited teacher, telling him all of the scientific details and none of the practical details. He couldn’t really make heads or tails of the whole thing, truth be told.

Jane makes a pained face. “Well, it turns out that my stepsister hasn’t been pulling my leg this entire time, and she has this ability too. I’ve never believed her about her  _ Sensate  _ ideas, but now I suppose that she may have been telling the truth. So I’ll have to go through  _ that _ conversation at some point. But after that’s out of the way I’m sure she can answer any questions we might have.”

“A smashing good resource, then,” he laughs. “And we’ve got Jade and her grandfather as well, maybe some of the others know more. I don’t think I’ve met the lot yet.”

Jane shrugs. “I haven’t met any Jade, just some weird blonde guy and now you. I keep thinking I see others, though.”

“Me too!” Jake says, standing from his chair to circle to the front of the desk. He leans against it next to Jane, finding her company unexpectedly pleasant for the heiress of such vast and intimidating corporations as both CrockerCorp  _ and _ Skaianet. “It’s been a right bother if I can say so, I’ve got lots to do today and work waits for no one, especially when it’s wildlife in trouble, that’s what gran always said- says,” he nods to the portrait.

“So much to do,” she sighs in agreement. “Though, where is your grandmother? I would expect her to be running things.” Her finger trails over the name placard, reading Jake English rather than Judy like most people expect. The office is clearly the head of operations, he can’t fault her on that logic. It’s got all the official documents neatly organized in a file cabinet to the side, and all the awards and certificates lining the wall around Gran’s picture. She looks fantastic in it, full of an energy and enthusiasm that Jake finds it difficult to conjure up some days.

But Jane’s question puts him on the defensive. “While it’s  _ not _ really any of your business, especially as a potential competitor, if you must know- She’s taken ill. I’m in training to someday take her place, so I work in the office in her stead.”

She just nods thoughtfully, looking at the portrait with piercing and pale blue eyes. Jake gets the split-second nasty thought to ask her about  _ her _ family, if she knows who is inheriting the title of baroness yet. He doesn’t lack the ability to censor himself, however, and he has to hold off on that urge for the sake of good relations. He’ll have to be a tad more careful around her, in any case. His gran wouldn’t have wanted him to be spilling any company secrets. She wouldn’t have wanted him to be doing a lot of the things he’s been doing lately, truthfully.

With the lull in the conversation Jake decides to tune in a bit to where Jane happens to be at the moment. He’d learned that trick from Jade, who had done her best to give him a Sensate crash course as fast as she could, with mixed results. He got the gist. Regardless, Jane is sat on an outdoor patio overlooking a huge cityscape, and pulling from his limited knowledge on the heiress, he guesses it’s in Japan. Not Tokyo, but another major city that he can’t quite remember the name of. The patio has pool chairs and potted plants, and behind her Jake can see into a lavishly decorated penthouse. Emblazoned onto the building beside them is the giant red spoon of CrockerCorp.

“Admiring the view?” Jane asks, one eyebrow raised good-naturedly.

“It’s grand, a real sight to see,” he nods. “That’s been the most fun about these shenanigans, seeing all the exciting exotic locals so far. Indonesia’s apparently beautiful this time of year.”

Jane’s phone beeps and she looks down in surprise, then her face falls and she sighs. “My stepmother has summoned me,” she says, tilting the phone so that he can see. The words are in a pink, glittery font and Jake doesn’t even know how that’s possible on Pesterchum, or even that adults knew how to use that app. It reads,  _ ‘hey gurl, gotchu a birthday present downstairs come and get it’. _

He doesn’t know how he expected the pseudo-leader of the free world to talk, but this throws him for a loop. “I- that’s her? The  _ condescension _ ?”

“Please, she hates that nickname,” Jane says, but winks, so he knows to call her that as much as possible, especially around Jane. “Yes, that is my dear stepmother. I wonder if it’ll be a tiaratop, like she got Feferi for her sweet sixteen. Hopefully she won’t make as big of a deal of it this year,” she sighs again.

As she speaks, loud music starts up from somewhere underneath them, a bass booming and vibrating the entire balcony and making both of them startle. Jake doesn’t know the tune, but it sounds distinctly American, a bit out of place across the pond in Japan. Today has been rife with the unexpected, and while it may not be laserbeams, he certainly can’t complain that it’s not exciting!

Jane gets up to leave and Jake begins to follow, but she turns to him with a sharp look in her eye. “I can’t risk giving away company secrets, even unintentionally. A pleasure to meet you, Jake, but goodbye.”

He starts to stammer out a goodbye, but one blink and he’s right back in Gran’s old office, alone again. Well, not alone, at least three phones are ringing and he has a new flood of emails to attend to. But in terms of human contact, he’s on his own. Well, if there’s one thing Jake English can handle just fine, it’s that! He heaves a sigh, and looks at the clock, only another hour or so until he can collapse into bed once more, just to start all over again in the morning.

####  Part 7: Roxy

Roxanne preferred to be called Roxy, and it was her sixteenth birthday was well. Her day was going… Well, it was sure going! If the empty glass beside her is any indication, that is. Correction: multiple empty glasses, in various shapes and sizes, some old, some new. Roxy hauls her head upright, looking with squinted eyes at the alarm going off on her desk. It’s eight AM, and if she wants to get to class, she needs to be out the door within the hour.

And yeah, no, not today. That is not going to be a thing that happens today. She lets her head fall back down into the fluff of the pillow, letting out a groan. She’s been hungover before, and she can remember those times all too vividly, but it’s soooo much worse today, and her head feels like it’s  _ going _ to explode. Like, she wouldn’t be surprised at all if it really did. Not even a little bit. She cracks open one eyelid and tries to focus her eye enough to look around.

Okay there’s not that many discarded bottles. Most of them are old, and from what Roxy can tell, she didn’t drink much more last night than normal, and she  _ knows _ this because she set a limit! If she’d blown her entire stock last night, she wouldn’t have any for her actual birthday party! She should be waking up feeling  _ better _ than normal. So what gives?

Irritated, now, she pushes herself upright to sit with her hands braced underneath her, frowning heavily down at the bed. She feels more unsteady than she thought she would. She carefully untucks her legs and pushes herself out of bed, holding out her arms to steady herself, and makes her way to the sink. She’s long since started keeping the painkillers in immediate access with the water bottles by the sink. Because y’know, hydration is key.

The painkiller gods have decided not to take pity upon her today, unfortunately. She sets the bottle of water down and holds her arms up, looking to the ceiling.

“Whyyyyy,” she asks in a whine, beseeching these supposed gods. They don't answer. “Fine. Be like that,” Roxy mutters. She unsteadily goes back to her bed, and checks her phone, seeing that Sabrine can’t come to her party. Neither can Meline, or Naomie, or Lorelei, or Isabelle. So nearly everybody. There are, however, an enthusiastic couple of texts from Calliope, who Roxy knew she could always count on.

She texts Calliope saying that it’ll probably be just the two of them, that night, and that’s just the right number, nobody gets to hog the drinks or be annoying. Just Roxy doing all that. Which Calliope will have to deal with by herself, but Roxy wants to focus on the positives!

But if Calliope’s coming over today, then she should probably clean up the bottles. Probably. That would in theory make the most sense. At some point apparently she leaned over on to the bed, and then she sat down. Roxy doesn’t really remember doing that, but her memory’s spotty at best anyways, always has been. Sometimes she imagines her brain with holes like swiss cheese, if she feels like laughing in a sad, self-deprecating sort of way.

Well now that she’s sitting, does she really want to get up again? Does she want the world to rock around her some more, when sitting down she feels balanced again? ...No, the world’s still tilting a little bit regardless, like when she leans to her right the rest of her body follows a half-second behind. Not completely sober yet, then. And if the world’s going to spin anyways, she might as well get some cleaning done.

A half-hour later, her room is tidy (tidy- _ er _ ) and there’s a knock on the door. Roxy nearly trips over her feet in her haste to answer it, and throws it open with enough force that she has to catch herself while her socks slide across the stone floor. She’s slid face first into the door a few times. It’s a legitimate concern.

There wasn’t anyone it could have been but Calliope. Roxy won’t delusion herself with those kinds of thoughts. Callie looks startled, but that’s her default setting. “Roxy!” she says. “Happy birthday!”

“Thank you,” Roxy dips her head, grinning, and gestures for her to come in. She’s well put together in her uniform already, her cropped white hair held back unnecessarily in a bright lime headband, one of the only bits of flare in the drab uniform. She had a couple pins in her jacket, which Roxy always thinks is a nice touch. Meanwhile, Roxy has one stocking pulled up and one only halfway onto her foot, and no jacket.

“Are you not going to class today?” Callie asks, worried, taking in her appearance. Her French isn’t perfect, but Roxy can’t really expect it to be when she didn’t grow up here. Roxy herself has a bit of a blend of accents, from living in various places around France over the years. No perfect Parisian, nor does she sound born-and-raised in Marseille like most of the girls here. “Can your marks afford to drop more?”

“What are you talking about, Callie? I’ve got perfect marks across the board. I’m  _ best _ in my class,” Roxy protests, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t know if Callie believes her or not, but even if she takes it as sarcastic, it’s a good joke and a good answer. Even though it’s one hundred percent true. She couldn’t afford for it not to be, her scholarships would fall through.

“Oh,” Callie says, clearly still concerned. She casts a searching eye around the dorm room, and Roxy’s so glad she decided to clean up. She portrays herself as the picture of innocence, clasping her hands behind her back and standing straighter. Callie doesn’t comment on it, and that quiet indulgence is why Roxy loves her. “Well, then why aren’t you going?”

“It’s just not in the stars today! I deserve to have my birthday off,” Roxy shrugs, spinning on her heel to swipe up her phone again. “What brings you here to my fine-ass abode today?”

Callie holds up a finger and swings her bag off of her shoulder, rummaging through it. Finally she pulls out a folded piece of paper, handing it over to Roxy while pointedly not looking at her. If she’s not mistaken, Callie is blushing, which was adorable and definitely a good omen.

Roxy unfolds the paper to find a brightly colored drawing of herself, looking happy and with a light in her eyes that she can’t really find in her real life, and she’s wearing a shiny silver dress in a 40’s movie Marilyn Monroe style, even though they’ve had the discussion and Callie’s never seen any of her movies. It’s a lot, and Callie clearly put a lot of effort into making sure Roxy likes it. She gets a little choked up and tears spring into her eyes as she smiles widely, but she quickly forces those to go back where they belong. Instead she pulls Callie into a tight hug for maybe just a touch too long.

“Thank you so much omg!” Roxy exclaims, pronouncing the letters of the acronym individually, pulling back to hold Callie at arm’s length while she beams at her.

“You really like it?” Callie asks nervously, her face still red. “I was worried I got it wrong, does she look like you enough?”

She re-examines the drawing, and notices what she’s talking about. Drawing-Roxy has more curves than she’d ever hope to get in real life, and she looks more… Rounded, with less angles to her, elbows and knees not as bony, cheeks contouring in a distinctly feminine style. That might have just been Callie’s art style, all rounded edges, but to Roxy it didn’t even register as different. This drawing, toe to tip, was a bonafide Roxy.

“Of course! I promise it’s perfect,” Roxy says, going to her desk and rummaging until she finds some pins. She puts it onto the corkboard on the wall, pinning it into place so that she can stare at it for the next several months, at least until they kick her out of the dorm. She turns back to Callie. “She  _ does _ look a bit too sober, though,” she jokes.

“Oh, well,” Callie stutters, flustered. Roxy laughs.

“Nonono, it’s good! Just messing with you!”

“...Is  _ everyone  _ going to be an alcoholic?” a voice says, and Roxy actually jumps a foot or so back, in a chain reaction causing Callie to startle, too. Roxy hits her hip on the desk, hard enough to definitely leave a bruise.

She spins around to find a whole-ass person standing behind her where there definitely was no person there before. It’s a boy, with hair even lighter blonde than her hand-bleached locks, and a good couple inches shorter. He looks exhausted, but stares around the room in confusion.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” Roxy asks, and Callie sends her a sharp look, glancing at the new boy for only a second.

“Roxy?” Callie asks hesitantly.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” the boy says in a deadpan. “She can’t see me, by the way. Not to freak you out or anything.” He takes a hand out of his hoodie pocket and gestures to Callie.

“You’re too late! I’m freaked out!” Roxy exclaims, taking a few steps closer to him. She doesn’t miss when he takes a defensive half-step backward, and then tries to play it off like he didn’t. “There’s no possible way for you to be in my room right now.”

“Actually, you’re in my room,” the boy says, nodding at something to his right. Roxy furrows her brows and looks in that direction, seeing a shelf of vinyl records that do not belong to her. They’re set up against a darker beige-colored wall, nothing like the plaster white of her dorm. Yeah, that’s not her room! But she looks back and can still see Callie, who is staring at her with a confused, slightly frightened expression.

“Mmhmm. Okay,” Roxy says. She rubs the bruise on her hip that’s already making itself known. “Callie, there is an invisible boy here that apparently only I can see,” she says, not taking her eyes off him, but figuring her friend needs to know.

“My name is Dave,” he says, holding out a hand.

“...Roxy? Are you… okay?” Callie asks while Roxy frowns at his hand. She takes it, moving her gaze up to his face.

“Roxy then?” Dave asks. She gives up and shakes his hand, nodding while her brain gets to calculating exactly what the fuck could be going on.

“I’m great. This is a great birthday, so far,” she says, dropping his hand and tossing her voice over to Callie. “You’re going to be late to class, you should probably go while I figure…  _ this _ ,” she nods to Dave, “out.”

“I don’t know if you should be alone?” Callie says with a questioning uplift of her voice. “If you’re hallucinating?”

“Mm-mm. Not hallucinating, I know what that feels like,” she says, still not looking away. She worries that if she does look away, he’d vanish. But this only serves to alarm Callie more. “His name is Dave.”

“You can tell her I say hello,” Dave says, and he’s obviously trying to hide it, but there’s the slightest smirk going on in the corner of his mouth that Roxy does  _ not  _ appreciate.

Roxy rolls her eyes at him over-dramatically, and says to Callie, “He says hi. Promise I’m not hallucinating. I’ll text you?” She shakes her phone in her hand. Callie still looks doubtful, so Roxy says, “Listen, worse case scenario I  _ am  _ hallucinating, best case is I have, like, superpowers. Or he does. Idk.”

Dave puts a finger to his nose. “Ding ding, superpowers, you guessed it. We’ve both got ‘em.”

“Okay, superpowers,” Roxy nods, reassuring Callie best she can. “Promise it’s all good here! Promise,” she says, as earnestly as she can possibly be. “You’re gonna be late to class if you stay here any longer!”

Callie stares at Roxy for another few moments, occasionally squinting in the direction she assumed Dave would be, and he gives her a wave that she can’t see. Finally Callie sighs with a relenting huff, and hoists her bag back onto her shoulder. Roxy swoops in to hug her and kiss her cheeks, which she reluctantly accepts, still in disagreement. But finally Callie leaves the dorm.

Dave clears his throat. “So, is that your girlfriend, or-”

Roxy throws a pillow at him, definitely not embarrassed. “Who are you!”

####  Part 8: Dirk

Dirk is having a really weird sixteenth birthday. He doesn’t celebrate the occasion, never had a reason to, but the only reason he takes note of it at all is because things have gotten a little strange.

He keeps seeing people who aren’t really there, out of the corner of his eye. They’ll appear and disappear in little flashes, never enough to get a solid look at them, and that definitely counts as “odd” in his book. He’s been counting, though, and he’s seen about ten different flashes by now. A couple of them have appeared more than once, but he couldn’t say which ones. There seems to be no visible link between any of them, and he’s certainly never seen any of them before in his life. The whole ordeal is just turning out to be very tedious for his liking. He’s got bigger, more important irons in the fire to handle today.

He’s being followed by someone much more substantial than these flashes of people, and so they aren’t helping with his paranoia even a little bit. He hasn’t managed to get a good profile on his pursuer yet, either, not with all the unnecessary distractions. All he can tell is that they’re good, whoever they are. Might be time to make a final stand of some kind.

Dirk ducks down a side street that opens up into a square, a small one, secluded from the open streets of Bremen. It’s about five A.M., so the light’s barely just beginning to seep through the spaces between buildings, and it’s still pretty far away from morning to justify wearing his shades. He lowers them to do a quick mental sweep of the area, make sure there’s nobody around, and then takes a running start at the lowest set building to his right. He propels his feet onto the vertical surface and jumps up high enough to get a grip on a windowsill above, hauling himself higher and jumping up handholds and pushing himself up with his feet wherever he can find purchase.

Finally he drags himself up onto a balcony a floor or two up, where the sliding glass doors are covered by a thick curtain and it looks like the inside is vacant. More importantly though there’s a pillar on the corner, and Dirk shelters himself behind it while his pursuer down below enters the plaza. He peeks his head around the corner and sees them standing in the center, moving in a slow circle taking in everything it has to offer.

The figure is a woman, wearing a smart suit with a trilby hat, and she’s pretty observant from what he can tell, seems to have a critical eye. Her gaze wanders a bit too close to where Dirk’s concealed himself, and he has to duck his head back into cover before she can spot him. He can’t see her, now, but he can see her vague shape in the reflection of the glass in front of him. She’s still turning in a slow circle, nearly completing her rotation.

She stops, pauses a second, and then calls out, “I know you’re around.” Dirk doesn’t respond. Obviously. “Listen, I just want to help you. I think that you can turn your life around. We can find you a safe place to stay, and you can start over. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

She has no idea who Dirk is, that much is clear. He remains silent, and still, waiting to see if she’ll continue.

“My name is Detective Peregrine. Your parents are worried about you!”

That’s the most bullshit Dirk has ever heard, and he has to hold back a reaction, which is probably what she wants anyway.

She sighs in clear frustration. “Listen kid, I know you’re up there. It’s the only place to go.” Dirk can see in the reflection that she’s still facing him. “Just come down here and we can talk, or I can keep trailing you all day if I’ve gotta.”

Dirk rolls his eyes behind his shades. Yeah, and he can keep evading her all day. Or, well. He might have been able to if these stupid hallucinations would stop harassing him. One pops up right in front of his face, and he’s only human, he flinches back and thumps against the pillar. He manages to do so silently, but the balcony rattles on its hinges with the sudden movement.

The hallucination in front of him is a boy with messy dark hair, freckles, and ridiculous square glasses taking up half of his face. He looks as surprised as Dirk feels, but he shows it a hell of a lot more on his face.

“Oh my  _ gosh _ it worked,” the boy says, breathless and starting to grin. Dirk flashes a glance over his shoulder into the plaza, and mother _ fucker  _ she’s gone. He twists around. looking to where she might have gone, completely ignoring the hallucination for now. How does he know its a hallucination? Simple. Nobody sneaks up on Dirk. Boy appeared out of thin air. Therefore, not real.

Dirk swings one-handed over the railing, falling into a roll on the ground. For a second he thinks that he lands on grass, instead of cobblestone, but he ignores that feeling for now. He flashes to his feet and looks around, seeing the boy still up on the balcony, hands leaning on the railing, eyes wide. “That was super cool!” he says, excited.

His attention is more on the gun a few feet from his chest. Detective whats-her-name has it trained on him from where she stands directly under the balcony, giving a small smile of remorse. Dirk doesn’t move, doesn’t put his hands up, doesn’t say anything. Just watches, waits for her to make her move.

“Is this really the only way you’ll hear me out?” she chuckles, nonchalantly. “Listen. This path you’re going down? You’ve got to stop, before it’s too late. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, kid!”

She sure does ask him to listen a lot. It’s not like he isn’t hearing what she was saying. She just has no idea what she’s talking about.

“I can help you, but you’ve got to talk to me first!” she says, getting annoyed now. “Believe me, I’m not here to get you in trouble. I really do want to help you. I’ve got a kid your age, I can’t imagine her living out here on the streets.”

“I don’t care,” Dirk finally says, face passive at best. He takes a slight step forward, testing. The detective holds her ground, not wavering, but he can still say with about 89% certainty that she won’t shoot him.

“There are people who do!” she says. Dirk’s past caring, now. He takes another step forward, and Peregrine doesn’t move, sees that the gun safety’s still on, and then quick as a flash Dirk darts forward and shoves his palm under it, pointing it skyward, and knocking it up into the air. He swings a foot up to about shoulder height and kicks it, sending it spinning across the plaza. Then he ducks under the detective’s outstretched arms and now he’s running. She calls after him, “Goddamnit! Come back here!”

Like hell he’d do that. Dirk keeps running, ducking into side streets and alleyways, until he finds a fire escape and runs up the wall again to get a hold on the first platform and sprint the rest of the way to the roof. He crouches down at the top, peeking over the side, and a minute or so later the detective runs by, looking around out of breath, and then keeps going right past him. Dirk lets himself breathe again.

“So you’re some kind of badass, huh?”

God give him mercy it’s the hallucination boy again. “Would you shut up?” Dirk asks, politely, through gritted teeth. The boy blinks, surprised, and then looks almost hurt. “Don’t need hallucinations on top of everything else,” Dirk mutters.

“Oh!” the boy says, like a lightbulb going off in his head. “I’m not a hallucination! That’s what I thought, too, at first. It’s okay, though, we’re all just… Psychic? I think that’s the word we’re using. You’ve probably seen others, too, right?”

Dirk raises his eyebrows pointedly above his shades, turning his head to the side to look at the boy. “Seriously? ...Guess I have.” The boy’s standing, leaning against a white picket fence railing on a wooden deck floor. That’s not what the top of this roof looks like. Dirk’s lying on the wooden panel, too, and the sky above him is dark, but not quite black yet. The sun’s in the wrong direction. It’s quiet, much too quiet for a city, and when he looks beyond the boy, beyond the railing, he sees a quaint suburban neighborhood, where all the houses are separate and have their own little yard. Looks American.

Dirk heaves a sigh and turns his head back up to face the sky, giving up. “Get lost.”

The boy looks confused, and then hurt, and Dirk can’t afford to care. There’s a moment of silence, and when Dirk looks he’s back in Bremen and he’s alone again.

He probably just made a complete ass of himself to a total stranger. If what the boy said was true, then he’d be seeing him again. There’s about a 50% chance he was making it up, and Dirk really was hallucinating, but that leaves a 50% chance that he was telling the truth and they’re psychic. Okay, he pulled those numbers out of his ass, but he really has no way to judge a situation like this. It’s highly uncalled for.

Later, Rose will scold him for being rude and demand he apologize. There’s also a 50% chance that he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unsurprisingly, Rose is easiest to write. Jake is by far the hardest, if anyone has advice on him, it'd be much appreciated. I thought Jane would be difficult, I don't know her character as well, but she has the most Plot Related Shit so I really like writing her sections! Roxy and Dirk come surprisingly naturally to write, Harleyberts I have more struggles with :/
> 
> Anyways, I have almost all of chapter 2 written right now, but i'd rather wait to post it until most of chapter 3 is written! Sooo that'll either be in 2 weeks or in 3 months, anytime between then. In the meantime feel absolutely free to comment and tell me what you think, and also you can yell at me from my tumblr robinheartz, and on there my "hs" tag is full of headcanons, fun things, and a lotta art that influenced this. Have at me


	2. Flavour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue to happen and don't show any signs of not continuing to happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter guys

####  Part 1: John

John Egbert has met most of his cluster, by now, and the weekend’s been a blur of introductions and questions and new people and new places. It’s been a lot. But that’s not to say that it’s not sweet as all hell, because it really is! In fact, the return to school on Monday and the return to his life of normalcy feels really weird. That morning he slips back into his routine like nothing happened at all. Maybe it didn’t.

Anyways, part of his routine is sitting at the end a table alone during lunch, the period right after English. He’s got his headphones in and he’s listening to some music, his math homework due next period out on the table next to him. He would have done it over the weekend, but, well, he was a bit preoccupied, and he feels like it’s understandable that he slipped up. It’s just some stuff he needs to finish from spring break, is all. He doesn’t understand why teachers insist on assigning any homework over break at all, but he guesses it’s fine to keep in practice so that he doesn’t forget anything they learned.

But it’s too late for that, apparently, while John frowns down at the numbers he’s reading. He twirls the pencil around in his hand, going back and forth over the paper as he tries to write something, anything, because it’s better than nothing. Finally he sighs and puts the pencil down, taking another bite out of his sandwich instead while he gives the paper a stern look of disapproval.

“Is that math? Can I help?” a voice asks. He’s gotten used to random voices interjecting themselves into his day, by now. It didn’t take long at all, surprisingly. John looks up to see Jade Harley sitting on top of the table, who he’d briefly spoken to in the flurry of hasty introductions. She’s lively, is the word for it,  _ really  _ tall and  _ very  _ lanky with a heap of hair that can be tamed about as much as John’s own perpetual bedhead can be. He has absolutely no idea how she keeps it that long without cutting it down to size, seriously.

“Can you?” John asks, taking out one earbud. He wants to be discreet about talking to the people sharing part of his mind, but also, he knows that nobody’s looking at him anyways. “That’d be great, if you can figure any of this out.”

“Oh yeah, I may be more of a science gal, but math holds a place in my heart too!” Jade says, leaning over the paper, aforementioned hair spilling all over the table. John takes the paper bag marked with his name and subtly moves it to the side, clutching his food a little closer to his chest to avoid her. She looks at his homework for a bit, chewing one lip and frowning, before humming in confusion. “This math is weird.”

“I know,” John says regretfully. “It’s also due in an hour, so, anything helps me out here.” Jade looks up for a second, making eye contact, then looks down again.

“Well, it’s just trigonometry, so it should be simple, just…” she frowns, and seems less inclined to actually help him, instead just taking his pencil and scribbling notes on the paper for him. John sits back and watches her, trying to figure out what she’s doing, but honestly it looks a little beyond him and beyond what they’re learning in his sophomore year math class. After a bit she looks back at him, uncertain, and passes the paper with the pencil on top of it over to him. “I think that’s good. I’m not super sure, but, it’s right at least even if it’s not what the teacher wanted!”

John looks at it and can’t really tell, so he just sighs. “It’s probably fine, it won’t matter in the long run.” He puts it into his bag, focusing back on his food, offering Jade a pretzel from a ziploc bag of them his dad packed. She takes it and they both taste it, which is definitely the weirdest part of this whole thing so far.

He looks around in the space where Jade is, which apparently is her room, and sees an open suitcase on her bed, half filled with clothes and assortments of the randomest things John has ever seen. Her window on the far wall is wide open, and it’s pitch black, with cold night air drifting in, which is a startling difference from the midday sunshine that John is experiencing. Jade hops up from her bed and goes to her metal wardrobe that leans against the wall, taking just an armful of shirts and dumping them in the suitcase before squashing them down with her body weight.

“Are you… going somewhere?” John asks, wondering if that might be too personal of a question. But is there such thing as privacy within the cluster? As far as he’s found, not really. Except that Dirk guy, who didn’t want to tell anyone anything and honestly seemed like kind of a jerk, but everybody else seemed open to really getting to know each other. Jade, especially.

“Yep! I’m going to Japan with my grandpa for a business meeting, I’m hoping that while I’m there I can visit Jane in person!” Jade says cheerily, and he has to rack his brain to remember who Jane was. If she was from Japan, then she’s most likely the short Japanese girl, right? Is that racist? ...No, probably not, John decides. He’d only talked to her briefly.

“Yeah, she was nice,” he says, in an empty sort of way, just for the sake of responding more than anything else. Then a thought occurs to him, and suddenly he’s  _ sure _ he’s seen her face before. “Wait, wait, that’s not… she’s not Jane  _ Crocker _ , is she?”

“Yep!”

“Jade! If that’s  _ Jane Crocker _ then that means her mom is the batterwitch herself!”

Jade gives him a confused look, but she’s still smiling like she’s amused at his  _ entirely justified _ paranoia. “Yeah, that’s who my grandpa is meeting, John, the head of the Betty Crocker empire. Though, to tell you the truth, I don’t think her name’s actually Betty.”

“No shit, Jade, of course that’s not her real name,” John says, standing up and pacing around Jade’s room. At least, this version of himself does, the real him is still sitting down, just looking incredibly irritated while he eats his pretzels. “What kind of business does your grandpa have with her? What does he do?”

“He’s a scientist, they’re probably developing some more tech,” Jade shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter, I’m pretty sure she’s not actually evil. It’s just conspiracy theories.”

“Sure, that’s what everyone says, but if even one thing goes wrong, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There is something  _ off _ about that whole thing and I don’t believe for a minute that the other heiress really just went to Argentina and then came back in some act of rebellion. There’s gotta be more to the story, right? She’s been acting so weird since she got back, you can at least admit that.”

Jade’s looking at him out of the corner of her eyes while she stuffs more clothes into her suitcase, and while John’s in a fury, she mutters to herself, “Oh, boy, he’s crazy.”

And okay, that’s, well, honestly fair. It actually gets John to calm down a little bit, remembering that he doesn’t actually know Jade, and that this is one of her first impressions of him. They met three days ago. And now she thinks that he’s actually crazy. And he has met Jane, and she seemed perfectly normal! A little intimidating, for sure, but only because she was wearing like a pantsuit and using big words. He takes a breath and forces himself to relax.

“Sorry, that’s the one thing I get a little intense about. It’s, um, probably something to do with the amount of Betty Crocker baking products I’ve had in my life,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. He digs around in the paper bag with his real body, and pulls out a plastic tupperware of cake, the one that he’d helped make for his birthday. He opens it up and offers it to Jade, “This is my birthday cake, it’s Betty Crocker, too, see?”

Jade picks up the plastic fork from in the bag and takes a bite, since he’s offering, and her face lights up. “That’s really good!”

“Yeah, that’s the worst part,” John sighs. “Not as good as from scratch, of course, but you know. Still decent.” Jade seems to accept the weird perk of his personality, and just laughs while she eats another bite of cake. John doesn’t mind if she eats the whole thing, because as far as they’ve been able to figure out, he’s actually the one eating it in the physical world. Something about Jade only being a mental representation? Her and Rose were the ones really getting into the science and mechanics of it, he’s just going off of what he’d been told.

“Well, I’ll let you know how it goes, I guess,” she says. With some effort she zips up her suitcase and sets it upright on the ground. “But please, tell me about American high school! It’s always looked so cool in the movies, and I’ve always wanted to go!”

“Do you… not go to school?” John asks hesitantly.

“Well, I did when I was little, but then my grandpa just taught me. He’s a scientist, so he was a way more reliable source than our teachers anyway. And now I’m taking some college courses online, and those are cool, but you know. Not really the  _ experience _ ,” Jade explains in a rush.

“Oh, okay, well, I think you can probably hang around for my next couple of classes,” he shrugs. “It’s just math and chemistry, and then I have band practice.”

Her face lights up in delight. “Chemistry! I’ll have to see if they’re teaching it right!”

He laughs, a little nervously, “Uh, yeah, it’ll be fun.” He checks the watch on his wrist and sees that they only have a minute or two left of lunch, so he hurries to finish up his food while Jade starts talking again, stuff about chemistry that honestly just flies right over John’s head. He’s not stupid, he’s actually a bit of a nerd if he’s being completely honest, but the details of nuclear physics are beyond him. Why  _ does _ Jade know so much about nuclear science, anyway?

####  Part 2: Rose

Rose Lalonde has never been in love before. She’s just barely sixteen, of course she hasn’t. The closest she’s come to any of that was with Alice from the Twilight saga, in the misspent days of her youth. Middle school is a trying time for anyone, and she does not per se  _ regret _ this unfortunate lapse in judgement, but how was she to resist the charms of a vampire with a pixie cut?

All this being said, on this quiet unassuming Monday, the universe in all her cosmic wisdom has decided to test Rose.

Rose works as a library assistant at her uppity private all-girls school in upstate New York, and this means that when new students are enrolled, it is her solemn duty to show them the highs and the lows of the Academy. She considers herself more than adequate in her responsibilities, and the fact that her tongue feels tied paired with an accompanying burst of nerves can be blamed in their entirety on one miss Kanaya Maryam.

“You say you’re from Lebanon?” Rose asks, escorting the much taller girl out of the administrations office. Kanaya pulls off the school uniform much better than Rose ever can, graceful and elegant in her stature and movements, every gesture flowing with the ease of water.

Kanaya nods, speaking with her accent that does incredible things to Rose’s insides, “Yes, that is what I said, because it’s true,” and then she smiles at her own joke and Rose has to look away before she does something completely unacceptable like trip over her own feet.

“Alright,” Rose smiles back, maintaining her own dignity for now. “Why did you move here? I can only imagine that upstate New York doesn’t hold nearly the same charm, if it even holds any at all.”

Kanaya hesitates, and Rose raises a single eyebrow. Oh, a woman of a mysterious past? Do go on. After a moment, she says, “I wanted to simplify my life.”

“Then you’ve found the right place,” Rose responds, deciding not to press her at all. It would surely only lead to a tense, agitated silence on both their parts, and then where would they be? She points to the set of double doors as they pass. “That room is the gymnasium, we will have assembly there as well on Wednesday mornings, and the locker room will be through there too.”

“Not yet,” Kanaya says.

“Hmm?” Rose asks, surprised. Kanaya isn’t looking at her, but at her inquisitive hum she turns, the faintest dusting of red across her cheekbones as if she could be embarrassed.

“Oh, just thinking aloud, don’t mind me.” She sends a sharp look to no one in particular, and now Rose is confused, suspicious, and has the slightest glimmer of  _ knowing _ in the back of her mind. But again, she has decided not to press the girl on anything concerning her past, or her present, for that matter. It would be rude to ask such personal questions when they’ve only just met, after all, but Rose does not plan on this being their last conversation. She will have another opportunity to ask, she will make sure of it. She will  _ have _ her answers.

“Okay,” Rose shrugs, and Kanaya looks quietly relieved. They enter a new section of the school, where Rose has most of her classes, and she remembers to ask her, “What grade did you say you were in?”

“I believe here I am a senior, in the twelfth grade,” she answers.

Rose nods like this information means nothing in particular to her. “This is where I have my classes, in the underclassman hall. It’s a shame we won’t have any together,” she says with a sudden bold inspiration.

Kanaya laughs, to her relief. “Yes, a shame,” she says.

“Oh, who’s the girl!” That’s not Kanaya, nor anyone Rose has talked to before, which honestly narrows down the options of who it could be quite drastically. Fallen into step beside her and Kanaya is a girl with dyed bubblegum pink hair, and from Kanaya’s lack of reaction this has to be another one from her cluster. They had done some brief introductions, but it had been difficult, to say the least, to accomplish the seemingly simple feat of collecting them all into the same room through the limited use of psychic abilities. They still don’t even have a final tally of how many are included in their cluster. The man in the white and green suit had said there were seven others from her, but still, she would prefer some confirmation.

But Rose remembers this girl’s name to be Roxy. She doesn’t answer her, can’t in their current company, but instead says, “Kanaya, what do you do for fun?”

“Kanaya? That’s such a pretty name!” Roxy says enthusiastically, making large hand gestures that Rose has to  _ incredibly subtly  _ dodge.

Kanaya, blissfully unaware of this exchange, thinks to herself for a moment and answers, “I like to make and design clothes, I suppose. I tailored my uniform myself.” She flares her skirt a bit, adjusting her cardigan, and now this explains why it looks to fit her so much better than Rose, who feels slightly less inadequate now.

“Oh damn,” Roxy says, “Pretty  _ and _ talented? Rose, what are your secrets!” Rose takes a breath and splits her attention between her school with Kanaya and what looks to be  _ Roxy _ ’s school, with a class going on around them. In Roxy’s world, Rose can talk freely, while Roxy cannot.

Rose, or at least a mental interpretation of her dwelling within Roxy’s mind, says, “Would you kindly not interfere with this perfectly innocently intentioned school tour I am giving my new transfer student?”

In Rose’s world, her own mental interpretation of Roxy snorts. “I’m not interferin’! I wanna be your wing-woman, help you score the girl. I’m getting mad vibes here, you can’t tell me you don’t like her.”

Rose rolls her eyes in both worlds, and is about to respond when Kanaya asks, “Rose? Have I lost you?”

She blinks, saying, “No, no, sorry, I just zoned out for a moment.” She looks up and meets Kanaya’s eyes, and she sees the moment that Kanaya gets that same look of  _ knowing _ as well. And now she isn’t sure whether or not either of them will acknowledge the  _ knowing _ , or at least the suspicions of knowing. She will let Kanaya decide. The ball is officially in her court.

“Oh, okay,” Kanaya says carefully, and Rose lets out a quiet sigh of relief. She tries to focus on the rest of the tour, but it gets a bit harder as Roxy continues to distract her, as her math class is ‘mad hells of boring’ and she needs something to do. Nevertheless, she seems to be prevailing, and the cover the gymnasium, underclassmen halls, dining hall, upperclassmen halls, the sanctuary that Rose has never stepped foot in, the dormitories for on campus students, and finally they loop back around to where the library and the admissions office is.

Having finished her tour that went near flawlessly, even though she had an extra passenger, she gestures to the library. “And you can find me in there the majority of the time, when I don’t have class. Should you need me,” she says with a smile, forcing herself to make eye contact. Confidence is key.

“Oh shit, forward,” Roxy comments, unnecessarily. Rose’s smile twitches, but she manages to ignore the other girl.

“You have been a perfectly delightful hostess,” Kanaya says, fluttering her eyelashes and dipping her head. Rose thinks that this might be the end, for her, but she makes an effort to stay strong and keep it together. Roxy does nothing to aid this and elbows her in the side with a shit-eating grin. It seems that when you share a mental space with someone they get to know you far too well far too fast. Or, perhaps, they are just privy to your thoughts. She will have to run tests on how deep this runs.

“Thank you,” Rose accepts the compliment graciously. “Second period should be starting soon, do you need me to escort you to your class?”

“I think that I can manage to find it on my own,” Kanaya says, and Rose would be lying if her heart didn’t drop the tiniest bit. She nods and turns to go back into the library and gather her things, but Kanaya holds out a hand as if to grab her and makes a little noise that Rose cannot identify. “Rose, wait, um-”

“Yes?” Rose turns back, possibly too eagerly, raising an eyebrow. Kanaya puts her hand down and composes herself, clearing her throat.

“I would like to talk with you some more,” she begins. “May I have your phone number?” Rose blinks rapidly, faced with what she had been quietly hoping for, but in no way expected to happen. Though, she supposes Kanaya could be asking for any number of reasons. She could always be straight, after all. Maybe she just wanted to talk about the  _ something _ . This, too, would be a fascinating conversation, and Rose decides that if this is the case she will not be disappointed in the slightest.

“Oh, of course,” she says, hastily pulling her cell phone from her pocket. Kanaya pulls out her own from the bag slung over one shoulder. Kanaya passes her phone over, and Rose enters in her phone number while Kanaya does the same. “In case you ever need help with anything school wise, or, um, otherwise.”

Kanaya laughs with a smile and they give back their respective phones. “Thank you,” she says, and they stare at each other just a moment too long. Long enough that Rose is forced to wonder if Kanaya is having the same sort of crisis she is. Kanaya looks away first, clearing her throat, and says, “I should go to class. We should both go to class.”

“Yes, I suppose we should. Well then, goodbye Kanaya, it has been a pleasure to meet you,” Rose says with a miniscule curtsy. Kanaya gives a little wave and then turns to continue on her day. Rose is smiling, and she keeps smiling.

“Ohhhh my god!” And that’s Roxy’s reappearance, and she’s grinning ear to ear. Her words come out in a quiet hiss, obviously bubbling over with the need to comment.

“You were awfully quiet throughout that whole exchange,” Rose says, tucking her hair behind her ear and reentering the library.

“That was perfect! You’ve got  _ game _ , Rose! And she’s a  _ senior _ ,” Roxy gushes, eyes looking starstruck. If she wasn’t halfway across the world Rose would be worried about competition. But as it stands, she doesn’t feel she needs to worry. “I didn’t want to distract any of that, it was beautiful.”

“Well then, thank you.”

Later that day Rose finds herself home from the academy, driven there by her mother, who at the moment is hanging up her monochrome jacket and her bright pink scarf on the rack living next to the front door. Rose takes off her shoes and places them on the mat right underneath it, doing it fast so that she may leave her mother’s presence sooner.

“Rose, dear, what would you like for dinner?” Not soon enough, it seems. Her mother has wandered to the kitchen, where she stands looking in the refrigerator, acting for all the world like she’s planning a home cooked meal. But Rose knows better, and knows that her mother will end up ordering food delivery or, if she’s really feeling like trying, heating up microwave dinners.

“Anything would be absolutely perfect, mother,” Rose says, smiling in her direction only to drop it a second later. Her mother pouts her lips in perhaps disappointment, probably wishing that Rose were able to do her job for her. Not today, and not ever.

“Oh, goodness,” says someone who is not her mother. Rose would think she would be used to this by now, but she can’t help but widen her eyes in surprise and dramatically spin around, momentarily forgetting her mother’s presence. It’s not a member of her cluster, like she suspected, but rather Kanaya, looking a mixture of bewildered and surprised.

Rose blinks several times to assure herself this is not a new form of psychosis, that perhaps all this ‘Sensate’ business was totally in her own head. This seems to break all of the rules they had hesitantly gathered, so for now, all she can do is watch to see if Kanaya will say something else. She briefly ponders the idea that Kanaya could be here in the flesh, but a glance at her mother shows only the look of vague curiosity on her face, not one of shock at seeing a stranger in her house.

Kanaya does speak, again. “Terribly sorry for the surprise, I was not sure if this would work.” Rose holds up one finger at an angle where her mother cannot see it, gesturing for Kanaya to wait one second.

She turns to her mother, fishing her phone out of her pocket, “Phone call,” and puts the phone up to her ear as she hurries towards the stairs. With any luck she will be able to talk freely. Kanaya follows her up the stairs.

“...Rose, you do know that this is not a real phone call, right?” she asks.

“Of course. I’m aware of the situation,” Rose says. She reaches her bedroom and kicks the door shut, tossing the phone onto the bed. “I wasn’t aware that this could happen. You’re not in my cluster, are you?”

“No, no,” Kanaya laughs. She explains, “Once Sensates make eye contact they can visit even if they are from different clusters. How long have you been awake?”

“Four days,” Rose shrugs. “I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, being a Sensate doesn’t come with a rule book.”

“It certainly does not-”

The door swings open and Kanaya cuts herself off, looking toward it in alarm. Rose’s mother pokes her head in, and Rose darts a glance at the phone sitting dark on her bed, too late to pretend to use it, now.

Her mother looks apologetic as she pushes the door open a little more. “I’m so sorry, Rose, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” though she most  _ certainly _ did, that was a lie, “but I thought you said the word Sensate?”

Rose and Kanaya share a shocked glance, which damns Rose more than words could have, and Kanaya mutters a quick apology before vanishing. “...Have you heard that word before?” Rose asks after quietly cursing Kanaya’s decision making skills in crisis.

“I have. A long time ago, back in my school days, I researched the subject quite a bit. I didn’t think I would ever hear that word again, until…””

“Until when, mother?”

“Well. Until now.”

#### 

####  Part 3: Dave

Dave’s current mission is to find some food, the same as every day around the time it got dark in Houston. The stash in his closet won’t last him forever, after all, and hard ramen doesn’t taste good when even he’s desperate, so if he can find another source, he will. The first step is to get out of his room, so he walks up close to the door and listens. He knows that he won’t hear anything, but not even trying would just be lazy. He has to cover all his bases, here.

But as he can’t hear anything, as predicted, so he has no choice but to just take the risk and go for it. His left hand loosely grips a sword, which is about as relaxed as he can afford to be, because walking around in this house without a sword would be suicide.

He edges open the door and so far so good. Hallway clear, check, look up at the roof, no ninjas or puppets or threatening notes to be seen, check. Door to the bathroom across the hall is open, but the light is off, could still be a potential threat, he’ll stay clear of it. He steps lightly, making no sound and maneuvering a little boost of speed past the bathroom door. Nothing jumps out at him, which does little to put him at ease, because if it’s not coming from the bathroom, then it’ll be somewhere else, but from here he just has to turn a corner and he’ll be in the kitchen-combined-living-room and also Bro’s room. Basically, all of the apartment that isn’t his room and the bathroom in one convenient space. If he went fast enough, he could dart across the room and directly out the door onto the stairwell, but he has no money and there is no way he could make it out without some sort of confrontation. Unless, of course, Bro isn’t home, but he’d bet there would still be traps littering the kitchen.

Dave grits his teeth and takes a risk, inching out into the room with his grip tight on his sword. He gets a smuppet straight to the face for his trouble, and he hisses out a swear before he can filter himself. It bounces off of him and falls to the floor, and there’s a huge pin sticking out of it with a piece of paper on it. He already knows what it’s going to say, but he takes a cautious look around at the seemingly empty room and picks it up anyway, tearing the paper off the pin.

_ Roof. Now. There’s pizza, if you can reach it. _

Okay, so that solves a couple of problems. Yes, there’s food in this apartment, yes, Bro is home, and yes, he’s not getting out of this without a fight. Only variable is if Dave can actually win the fight, or if Bro will just call it a day and leave after kicking his ass. Hopefully he’ll still get some pizza out of it either way, because that second option seems pretty likely.

So he hauls himself up to the roof. It’s only April but in Houston it’s always like being in the dead of summer, and the fact that the sun is setting doesn’t make a difference to the wave of heat that hits him the second he emerges from the stairwell.

His eyes spot Bro almost immediately, which means that something’s up, there’s something he’s not seeing, and that concerns him. Bro is perched on top of the air conditioner, his own sword resting with the tip on the ground while his hands are folded up on the handle under his chin. There’s a very tempting box of pizza sitting next to him. Behind each of their shades they make eye contact for a split second.

Then a second projectile comes flying at his head, and this time he becomes aware of it just in time to lunge out of the way, throwing himself to the left while he raises his katana defensively. It doesn’t make contact with anything yet, but he sees for an instant the blue glass eyes of Lil Cal, that grinning fuck, sailing past him, and he feels his heart give a little jolt in some automatic response wired deep in his brain.

The next flash brings the glint of metal, and when he throws his sword up in defense it makes contact with a sharp noise that disrupts the quiet evening everyone was having so far. Really it doesn’t stand out against the honking of car horns and shouting and other general sounds that happen in every downtown metropolitan area.

And then there’s another guy in front of him, and he’s throwing up a blade of his own and if he hadn’t done that Dave would’ve missed it and gotten hit. The new guy is between him and Bro, who’s come to a stop in front of him with his sword braced against Dave’s, and his mouth twitches in a way that reads as approval to him. Like he did something Bro didn’t expect. Which was shitty, because by now he’d think he’d at least be expected to know how to block. Lil Cal thrown into the situation always throws him off his groove, though.

The new guy darts away at the same time and speed as Bro does, but the difference is that Dave can still see New Guy, whereas Bro’s as good as disappeared. He shares a look with New Guy, who actually looks kinda familiar, with slicked back blonde hair and shades like Bro’s and an aviator jacket paired with fingerless gloves. A bad idea for the Texas heat, but he’s not judging, here, not with unseasonable fashion.

Dave really needs to stop being distracted. Bro comes at him again, and while he accidentally stumbles back a few steps he gets his sword up just in time to deflect the blow. The come faster and faster, and in some unspoken truce New Guy steps in and where Dave’s a second too slow he picks up the pace. He’s fast, probably faster than Dave, but definitely not faster than Bro, because that’s mathematically impossible.

“Does this happen often?” New Guy asks. Weird, though, because Bro doesn’t spare him a single bit of attention, which tips off Dave that maybe he planned this and New Guy’s not actually on his side. Which seems far fetched, but hey, it kind of made sense, right?

“Yeah,” Dave grunts, shoving Bro’s sword away from where it would have impaled him. Probably somewhere important, too, is his liver on his right, or his left? Both? He’s got kidneys on both sides, he knows that for sure, and oh fuck, he’s distracting himself again. Gotta stop doing that.

“Do you always suck this bad?” New Guy asks, and yeah, definitely not on his side, here.

“Fuck you,” Dave says, and Bro’s face gives another subtle twitch, and that one means he’s annoyed. Then Bro disappears, and that does wonders for Dave’s paranoia as he spins in a circle, eyes darting everywhere in search of him and the next attack. “Are you helping or not? Who are you?”

“I’m more of a knives kinda guy,” New Guy says, making a grabbing motion to Dave’s sword. “I’ll see what I can do with this, though.”

Dave pulls his sword in closer, defensively, “No, I’m not letting you leave me unarmed, no way.”

New Guy’s shades aren’t reflective like Dave and Bro’s, so he can  _ see _ him roll his eyes. Rude. “Seriously. Let me handle it for a second, trust me.” His words are fast, with some kind of accent that Dave can’t place but he figures it must be European because he knows what Spanish accents sound like and it’s not that, and it’s not anywhere African or Asian, either, but that’s mostly based on this guy’s unbleached but still  _ really _ blonde hair and skin that’s barely any darker. His expression reads as urgent, too, and well, Dave knows that he’s not good enough to beat Bro yet. That’s why he’s still being trained like this every day, until he  _ is _ good enough. He was going to lose either way. Might as well see where this went, right?

So he hands over his one weapon of defense, shrugging, eyes darting back and forth and still not seeing Bro and that’s making him anxious as hell but here he is, trying new things.

New Guy takes his sword, puts the tip of it under his boot, and bends it until it snaps right in half. He holds it up, expression blank, and says, “Knife.”

“Dude,” Dave says, shocked by this turn of events.

“It was kind of a shitty katana,” the guy shrugs.

“I  _ know _ that, it doesn’t mean you just get to break it,” he protests. And oh, there’s Bro, he’s back and swinging at him. Dave sidesteps, defenseless now, and New Guy picks up the slack, using the newly shortened blade’s close range attacks to their fullest. He jabs it in and out, and Bro manages to twist around fast enough each time that none of the blows land.

But the weirdest thing is that Bro’s completely ignoring Dave, now, in favor of New Guy, and he doesn’t even spare a glance when Dave slowly edges himself out of the danger zone. New Guy’s  _ good _ , too, and he’s so much faster than Dave. He fights different, and it looks like it’s just enough to throw Bro off for a good minute or two. Then he gets the hang of it again and starts beating New Guy back, and New Guy must not be practiced at rooftop battles because he’s letting himself be driven precariously close to the edge. Dave follows after them at a safe distance, wondering when Bro was going to spin around and decapitate him or something.

He sees the moment that New Guy takes one step too far and half of his shoe hits open air, and he watches his eyes widen and one hand fly out to grab something that’s not there, dropping the half-sword in the process. It falls down off the edge, and hopefully doesn’t impale any innocent pedestrians below. Then Bro snatches a hand out and grabs the front of his shirt, hauling him forward onto his feet, vanishing a second later.

New Guy takes in a few gasping breaths, and Bro doesn’t reappear. Dave cautiously makes his way over, to check on him, but keeps an eye out for Bro, shoulders tense.

By the time Dave reaches him and the guy gives a little nod that he’s fine, Bro still hasn’t reappeared, and Dave lets himself relax. He’s done for the day.

“You good?” Dave asks.

“Of course,” New Guy says, and he straightens and gets his composure back together, face going back to being completely neutral. He pauses a beat, then sticks out his hand. “Dirk.”

“Hell of an introduction,” Dave snorts, surprised. He takes the hand, though. “Dave.”

“So that was…?” Dirk asks, looking towards the door to the stairs.

“Bro,” Dave says, and he gets deja vu. Didn’t he have the same exchange with that Rose girl? Then a horrifying thought occurs to him. “Oh, shit, you’re not one of those, like, hallucinations, are you?”

“Um,” he says, caught off guard. “Yes?”

“Oh, no,” Dave says. “I feel like an idiot.” He gives Dirk another look, and then shrugs in acceptance and strides over to the air conditioner, and his prize of the night. The pizza’s still warm, fresh from wherever Bro picked it up. Three slices are missing. He picks one up and takes a bite, tasting the sweet taste of victory without getting his ass kicked, for once. He can still feel some bumps and bruises, those’ll hurt more later, and he can’t remember getting half of them but he doesn’t need stitches. So. A win for the team, in his book.

“Well. It looks like you needed the help, so, you’re welcome.”

So Dirk turned out to be an asshole. “Wow, okay, you don’t get any victory pizza. I had it handled just  _ fine _ , this is a daily occurance, man. If I couldn’t do this on my own I would be dead by now.”

Dirk’s eyebrows furrow. “Okay. I’m definitely not an expert on familial relationships of any kind, but, I’m not sure it’s normal to get beat up by your brother every day with sharp objects.”

Dave laughs. “Nah, dude, that’s just how we are. I wanted to learn how to swordfight, he’s teaching me. It’s not that deep, fam.” Dirk’s hand darts out and Dave flinches on reflex, but he doesn’t get far enough and Dirk takes a hold of his arm. His shirt’s a three-fourths sleeve, so his forearm is mostly exposed. Dirk pulls it closer to him, looking at the mess of scars that interrupt the flow of his skin, the white lines contrasting against the darker shade of his skin.

“That’s a big one,” Dirk comments, using his other hand to point out the thickest white line, running down the outside of his arm down from the back of his elbow.

“Lotta stitches, good thing Bro’s so good with puppet making. Sewed it right up,” Dave nods, uncomfortable but pretending he’s not, and he pulls his arm away until Dirk gets the hint and lets go. Suddenly Dirk is staring at him, way too closely like an examination, and Dave shifts uncomfortably and takes another bite of pizza while avoiding his eyes. “If it makes you feel better,” he stares out into the skyline, “it’s not any of your business.”

“I- Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Dirk says. He shifts away a bit, and Dave lets his shoulders relax again. He doesn’t remember when he tensed them. “Well, this has been super fun, I’ve got other things to do, so. See ya.”

“Samesies,” Dave agrees. “Later.” And Dirk just disappears from sight. Like Bro does, except somehow Dave has an internal sense that says Dirk is actually gone. And then a sense that Bro is  _ not _ .

A second later there’s a sword to his throat, and Dave jerks his head back to hit against the metal of the air conditioner.

“You want to explain any of that, kid?” Bro asks. He doesn’t know what to say. So Bro gets more specific. “I just watched you argue with yourself, step on your own sword and break it, and then pull out moves I  _ know _ I didn’t teach you, and believe me, I’d know if you were getting extra lessons somewhere. Spill.”

Dave doesn’t really know how to do that, or at least not in any way that Bro will actually believe. So. He panics and goes with the first thing he thinks of. “Uh- New coping mechanism.”

#### 

####  Part 4: Jade

Jade is never taking an early morning flight again. Sure, she likes being up in the morning, but this is just way too much! Her flight leaves at 7:15, and her grandpa says they have to get there a couple hours early, so in the end she had to wake up at three AM because she still had to pack. That is too early to be functioning! Humans aren’t meant to exist before five! At least she got to hang out with John, and hang out at a real American high school while she waited to board the plane. Grandpa had gotten used to her being even more spacey than normal, and he makes sure to give her a little nudge if he really needs her attention.

But after all that, she’s not able to sleep on the plane at all. She’s been on them a couple of times, but her grandpa usually leaves her home, so she just gets to go on the occasional vacation when he’s not traveling for work related reasons. His technology is widely sought, by buyers from all over the world, and Jade is proud of that.

Of course, that changes today! Grandpa’s got a business trip in Japan and after some begging and pleading, she finally gets to go! He says that it’s her birthday present. She’s not arguing, but she is a little curious to know why she gets to go on  _ this _ specific business trip. It’s a weird coincidence that her clustermate will be there, but it’s not like Grandpa knows that Jane is a sensate, or that Jane’s stepmom knows Jade is.

Planes are  _ boring _ once you’re above the clouds, is the main takeaway here. They’re descending now, so at least it’s over soon. The feeling of falling slowly through the air is a bit unnerving, but this plane was actually engineered by people under the Harley Foundation’s employ, so there’s not an airline she would trust more. Even so, she reaches down and gives a little scratch between Bec’s ears to comfort herself. The giant, pure white dog has his own seat reserved, but instead he’s lying down on the floor in the space between where Jade’s seat faces her grandfather’s. She’s pretty sure that he’s some kind of german shepherd, but they’ve never been completely sure.

“Grandpa, have you heard all the rumors about Betty Crocker? One of my clustermates thinks that she’s evil or something,” Jade says, breaking the silence. She’s totally not throwing John under the bus, but she  _ is _ curious and she  _ does  _ want something to rub in his face if it turns out he’s completely wrong. Because she likes him. Good inter-cluster bonding activities, you know?

Grandpa looks surprised, his huge bushy eyebrows rising above his glasses for a second before coming back down with a chortle. “No, my girl, of course those aren’t true. Betty Crocker’s only the brand name, besides, she’s not a real person. Unless miss Jane Crocker is somehow an evil megalomaniac at only sixteen, then no, the Crocker name has only innocent ties.”

“He says there’s, like, a secret organization pulling the strings, and everybody who knows about it gets murdered or something. Brainwashed, maybe, I don’t remember the exact words.”

“Now where would he get an idea like that?”

Jade laughs. “I don’t actually know, I think he said internet forums? Definitely not the most trustworthy source.” Grandpa laughs with her, and that’s comforting. He would know, since he’s in contact with Meenah Peixes, the current head of the company, or they wouldn’t be on this trip at all. Jade knows that Jane is in training to take over, but she doesn’t know how far her power goes at the moment. She just hopes they’ll be able to hang out in person!

She’s in better spirits when the plane lands. She doesn’t have the evidence to correct John  _ yet _ , but she’s definitely looking forward to that glorious moment. His face would be so great. And maybe he would feel better, too, that there’s no evil organization running the globe or whatever conspiracy theories he’s got in his head.

Jane and her had arranged to meet at the airport, last time they talked, so she’s there to meet them in a whole entire limousine with sideways seats and blackout windows and everything. It’s too much, but it’s also super cool and Jade’s very excited.

Jade runs over to the car, and has to pretend to not know Jane. “Hi! I’m Jade Harley, nice to meet you!” she laughs, holding out her hand, and in a quieter voice she adds: “Officially, I mean.”

Jane gives her a warm smile and shakes her hand. “Jane Crocker, a pleasure.” She does the same for Grandpa when he arrives, and a driver takes their luggage and stows it away into the back of the car for them, which is awfully nice.

Once they’re all in and the car is moving slowly through the streets of Osaka, Jade realizes there’s an elephant in the room that really only she knows about. It’s not Bec, who’s curled up diligently at their feet, doing his best not to get fur all over the seats. But Grandpa doesn’t know that Jane’s a Sensate, and Jane doesn’t know that Grandpa knows Jade’s one. She bites her lip, wondering if she should open the conversation at all. Would Jane be cool with it, or would she feel like Jade was exposing her?

...Well, only one way to know! Besides, Jade trusts her grandpa, and Jane should too! He’s basically the entire cluster’s grandpa, since they’re all kinda the same person anyways, right? “Grandpa,” Jade starts, “Jane’s a Sensate, too.”

She’s met with identical expressions of shock, for different reasons. Jane starts, “Jade-” but she waves a hand.

“Grandpa researches Sensates, it’s fine if he knows! I’ve known almost my whole life, what’s the point of keeping it a secret?” she explains, while her Grandpa is looking at Jane with an expression that she can’t quite tell if it’s just concentration or confusion. He looks very intent on whatever he’s thinking. But he catches her looking at him, and straightens his back.

“Ah, what a coincidence!” He laughs. “In the same cluster, I take it?” Jade nods, while Jane looks back and forth between them, calculating the situation and not saying anything. Jade still can’t really see the point of keeping this a secret, so no regrets, right?

“I haven’t told my stepmother,” Jane says after a pause. She doesn’t seem to expect anything from it, but she just puts the information out.

“Why not?” Jade asks.

“Why should I?” she counters.

“Because she’s one, too,” Grandpa interjects, and what?! Jade drops her mouth open in surprise, turning to look at him. Jane blinks a few quick times, silent, and he continues, “I’ve been in business with her company for a long time. She’s the reason that I know so much about Sensates, Jade. Lots of my research is funded by her.”

“But that’s- the odds of this are improbably high,” Jane says, leaning back in her seat. “I didn’t think that Sensates were this widespread, to have four in one place is insane. Right? I suppose you’re the expert?” she asks, glancing first at Grandpa and then at Jade.

“Four?” Jade asks.

“You, myself, my stepmother,  _ and _ my stepsister,” Jane clarifies with a sigh. “My entire family tree, it seems.” Grandpa nods like he knew this information, which Jade guesses he maybe did? Jade didn’t, though!

“I think it’s genetic, right Grandpa? If both Peixes are Sensates that kinda makes sense?”

Grandpa strokes his goatee, thinking. “It  _ can _ be, I suppose. Clusters each have their own mothers, who in most cases aren’t genetically related to any of their children. Using the terms ‘mother’ and ‘children’ loosely and metaphorically, of course, every cluster has one member who will someday birth another cluster, they don’t necessarily have to be female. Meenah could possibly have given birth to Feferi’s cluster,  _ and _ to Feferi herself, in an unlikely scenario.”

“Who is our cluster’s mother?” Jane asks.

“If anyone would know, it would be the two of you,” Grandpa shrugs. “Or another of your cluster.” Jade sits back and closes her eyes, flicking through connections that she can almost feel as a physical force.

“Does anyone know who our cluster’s mother is?” Jade says out loud, eyes still closed, and she projects the question through the seven tethers that connect her to the rest of them.

Suddenly the limo’s a lot more crowded, each seat filled and maybe three people sitting on the floor. Bec perks up and looks around, which is an intriguing thought that Jade will have to look into! But later!

On Jade’s right, Dave’s sitting practically in John’s lap, causing both of them to look really uncomfortable, even behind Dave’s shades while John is openly weirded out. Jane presses herself closer to the door where she sits, with Roxy next to her and Dirk on her other side. Jake and Rose sit on the floor, and Dave soon slides himself down to join them.

They’re all surprised, and a bit confused, talking over each other, but Roxy takes the lead and flaps a hand for silence. “Can you say that again?”

“Who’s the mother of our cluster? Apparently they would have had to appear to at least one of us, to wake us up in the first place.”

“Didn’t you wake up first? I think I gathered that much from all the confusion!” Jake points out. Jade shrugs.

“A man in a white suit came to me that night and explained a few things,” Rose says, projecting her voice. They all turn to look at her, and she gives Bec a pat while she talks. “He said that our cluster’s mother was otherwise occupied, I believe.”

“Is that a possibility?” Jane asks, looking at Grandpa, who gives her a confused glance. “That someone other than our mother Sensate woke us up?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure,” Grandpa says, pushing his glasses up. “Has anyone been in contact with this other someone?”

Jane looks at Rose, who shakes her head. “I’ve tried, but he’s been surprisingly elusive, and he failed to even provide any name.”

“What a dick,” Dirk comments under his breath, and Dave nods in agreement. John, sitting next between Jade and Dirk, gives him a weird look. Jade thinks that she remembers something between them, that John thought  _ he _ was a dick. Ha, Dirk and dick, just one letter off. Jade hides a giggle behind her hand.

“So we don’t know who our cluster’s mother is,” Jade summarizes. Everyone shakes their heads. She huffs. “Ugh. Well, keep a lookout, I guess,” she shrugs, waving a hand in dismissal, and then the population in the limo is down to a mere two Sensates once more.

“Were they all here just now? The entire cluster?” Grandpa asks, a curiosity for  _ knowledge _ alight in his eyes.

“Yep!”

“How many are you?”

She does a quick tally on her fingers, hoping desperately she doesn’t forget anyone. That would be so rude! She even double checks that she gets Dirk and Dave, the quiet ones. “Eight!”

“Fascinating,” he mutters, pulling a notebook from his bag and a pencil from behind his ear. Jane watches him with one eyebrow raised, thoughts inscrutable, while he scribbles down notes. Jade’s not bothered, he does this all the time when she talks about Sensate things, it’s a part of his life’s research, after all!

“We’re home. Jade, you can share my room, if you want,” Jane says, and sure enough, the car comes to a stop a moment later, and the driver comes around to open the door for them. She pauses on her way out. “Shoot darn. I forgot to offer drinks, sorry,” she gestures to a cooler sitting against the opposite wall from where Jade and her grandpa were sitting. Then she shrugs and gets out of the car.

Meenah Peixes herself is there to greet them, with a smaller version of herself in tow.

#### 

####  Part 5: Jane

Jane does quite like Jade. Her grandfather, not as much, so far, but only because she hasn’t gotten a measure of him in yet. She does think it was incredibly hasty of Jade to expose the both of them like this, but she supposes that it led to good information. And now she knows that Jade might not be one to trust with a secret. So she has something to discuss with Feferi posthaste.

She gives a smile to her stepmother, who raises her lips in what might be called a smile as well, but to Jane it reads more like a sneer, a sarcastic return of the gesture. That’s fine. Then she ignores Jane in favor of rushing over to Harley Senior, enthusiastically shaking his hand.

“Henry, my  _ guy _ !” She steps back and gives him the once over that Jane gets on a daily basis, saying in disapproval, “You look a helluva lot older, what’ve you been eating?”

Harley Senior gives a chuckle, “Mrs. Peixes, how wonderful to see you again. You look as good as ever.”

She jabs a finger into his chest. She’s got a good head of height over him, over all of them. “I look  _ better _ than ever, don’t you forget that. Janey,” she glances her direction, “The grown-ups have to talk. Go give that one the grand tour or whatever, but don’t show her anything important!” She dismissively gestures to Jade and winks, then punctuates it with, “Now scram!”

Jane catches Jade’s eye and nods, because the girl looks confused, and Feferi comes over and links arms with Jane. Together, the three of them leave the room while Harley Senior offers her stepmother his arm and leads her off in the opposite direction.

“So that’s your stepmom!” Jade says, falling into pace with Jane and walking with a spring in her step.

“Yep,” Jane nods. “And this is my stepsister, Feferi. Feferi, this is Jade Harley.”

“Pleased to meet you!” Feferi says, reaching her free arm across Jane to shake Jade’s hand. It’s a weird maneuver to pull off while they’re walking, and Jane nearly trips, but she manages to catch herself. They shake hands with matched exuberance, and now Jane’s a little worried that they might get along  _ too _ well.

“You too!” Jade gives Jane a slight conspiratorial smile, and Jane has to put a stop to that right now, before Jade lets things slip that Jane wanted to talk about in a controlled environment.

“So, how do you two know each other?” Feferi asks.

Jane blinks, then speaks before Jade can. “Well, we just met today. I picked her up from the airport.” Her stepsister hums to herself and raises an eyebrow, apparently suspicious for no reason. Really. No reason to be suspicious at all, here.

But then Jade interjects, apparently picking up Jane’s silent signals to keep quiet for now, but then not handling them very well. “Yeah! I’ve definitely never seen Jane before in my life!”  _ Now _ it’s suspicious, and Jane can’t keep up the farce for any longer. Cearly.

Jane drags a hand down her face with a groan. “Okay, we need to talk. Let’s go up to my room.” She pulls Feferi after her by the arm, reaching her other hand out to snag Jade’s and take her with them. There’s an elevator that runs up to the second and third floors of the penthouse, where the bedrooms were located on the third. Technically, it couldn’t be considered a penthouse in the literal sense of the word, but her stepmother would settle for nothing less than the best and penthouses were ‘in fashion’ at the moment, as she said.

Jane’s room overlooks the Osaka metropolitan area as a whole. One huge window takes up the majority of wall space on one side, letting in plenty of natural light. She presses a button on the wall next to the door, among the row of various light switches and levers, and a heavy shade descends slowly over the window. She flicks on the overhead light, dimming it halfway.

“This is gorgeous,” Jade says, leaning over a potted plant sitting on a pristine white shelf. She pokes her fingers around the leaves, gently holding them up to examine them. “I don’t think you’re watering it right, though, this leaf looks a little yellow.” Things in her room are minimalistic, or at least as minimalistic as she can manage. There are things like clothes, papers, pencils, garbage all lying on the floor, which she would be embarrassed about, but they’d established there are no secrets between Sensates. Or stepsisters.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” Jane nods. She’s more into botany as a little hobby, nothing serious, but maybe she should make the effort to keep this one plant alive. But there are more important things to discuss, and Feferi’s staring at her with unbridled curiosity in her big round eyes, so she might as well just rip off the band-aid. This was gonna be awkward, hence the procrastination so far on her part. “So… Feferi. Your, um, theories about me being… whatever you are. They may not have been completely wrong.”

Feferi gasps, grabbing her shoulders and swinging her around to face each other. “Jane! Why didn’t you tell me sooner! You’re really a Sensate, too? Was your rebirth on your birthday?”

“It was!” Jade supplies. “You’re a Sensate, too, right? Was it the same for you?”

“Yeah!” Feferi gushes, letting go of Jane and skipping over to Jade. “Are you in Jane’s cluster? Is that how she knows you?” Jade nods with a grin, and Jane was right that at least the two would get along. Their boundless energy would probably exhaust her before long.

“I thought it was all bullshit, because it sounded like it was,” Jane explains defending herself. “But, then, I think it was Dirk who appeared to me first.”

“Dirk as in quiet guy who John thinks is an ass?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Jane says, pointing a finger at her. “That one. Anyway, Feferi’s known she was a Sensate for a while. She knew, somehow, that I was too, I guess?” She looks to Feferi now.

“Yep! Once you know the signs, it’s really easy to find others like you.”

“That’s what Grandpa always says! So what’s your cluster like?” The way Jade looks at Feferi it seems like there’s stars in her eyes. From what Jane has pieced together, Jade hasn’t met any other Sensates before, so she guesses this would be an interesting experience. Though, she’s not sure that Jade has met  _ anyone _ before, really. Just her grandpa, maybe the occasional business trip or employee under said grandpa. She reminds her a lot of Feferi, but in a more rugged sort of way.

“There’s  _ twelve _ of us,” Feferi says, gesturing widely with her hands, and Jade is appropriately shocked. At this point, Jane feels like they’re speaking another language that she doesn’t quite know. “They’re all over the world, I’ve only met a couple of them in person. One was-” her head ticks a bit to the side, in a sudden jerking motion, and then she blinks and shakes her head. “He was a traitor.”

“What?” Jade asks, confused. Jane frowns at Feferi. She hadn’t heard much from her about being a Sensate, on account of her usually shutting down the conversation pretty quick.

“Never mind that! Tell me about yours!” Then Feferi’s back to smiling, eyes shining, and she moves to sit on the end of Jane’s bed. Jade exchanges a quick glance with Jane, but neither of them say anything.

“There are eight of us in total,” Jane says. “And you’ll never guess who one of them is.” The leading statement piques Feferi’s curiosity, and Jane goes over to the portion of wall dedicated to posters, tapping one with a finger. Lots of them are of boys, or bands, or shows, some girls, too. Clothes, cooking ware, music, that sort of thing. The one exception is the boy in honestly scandalously short pants, leaning heroically out of a tree to gaze at the horizon with a grin on his face. He’s got glasses, dark windswept hair, an islander’s complexion, and green eyes that contrasted in the best way.

“Jake English? No fucking way,” Feferi says, in awe. Jade stands up and goes over to the poster to examine it further, then laughs.

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s why he looked familiar,” she shrugs. The posters share a wall with Jane’s dresser, and a glint of red catches Jade’s eye. She nudges a brightly colored box, with the lid laying next to it, her taller height letting her see right inside of it. “Hey, what’s this? It looks familiar too.”

“Oh, that,” Jane says. She picks the tiaratop out of the box. “I got it for my birthday. My stepmother only has one gift idea for sixteen-year-olds.” Feferi taps the matching golden band resting below her hairline on her forehead, where it then disappears behind her ears into her multitudes of tightly woven braids.

“Isn’t CrockerCorp still developing these? I’ve seen designs back home, I think my grandpa might be helping design them,” Jade says. She reaches for it, and silently asks permission to touch it, and Jane hands it over. Jade runs a hand around the circlet, this one red instead of Feferi’s gold. CrockerCorp red, so it could be construed as a declaration that Jane was the heiress, or it could be merely designed to make the both of them paranoid and competitive. “It’s using some weird new type of nuclear fusion, it’s  _ super _ early into research and development and stuff as far as I know. I didn’t hear that it was safe yet.”

“I got mine almost two years ago, it works just fine!” Feferi interjects.

“Huh,” Jade says, putting a hand on her hip and handing it back to Jane. “Would you maybe want to put it on, so I can see how it works?”

Jane shrugs and puts it on over the short crop of her hair. It fits like a glove, naturally. “It might just be a promotional accessory, of course,” she says, but Feferi shakes her head, which confuses her. Feferi has never before let on that it was anything else, not beyond that strange scene she witnessed right before Dirk distracted her. “...Is it not?”

“No, it’s… well, something else? Here,” she reaches over and presses the little button in the center, sporting the stylized H symbol, the chosen icon of the Peixes family for generations. It was older than CrockerCorp by a good fifty years at minimum, long before Jane’s great-grandmother Betty Crocker was even born.

With the press of that button the technology switches on. To Jade and Feferi, nothing happens. But for Jane, it seems like images flash through her eyes, but more…  _ impressions _ , of images, rather than actual ones. The feeling of words, instead of readable ones. She gets the idea that she has a new message, and she gets the impression that it’s written in glittery pink comic sans.

The idea reads,  Finally, she gets with the program! I spent a lotta $$$ on that tech, least you could do was put it on damn. But whatevs. Bigger fish to fry. Janey, babe, when were you gonna tell your stepma that you were a sensate? Kinda rude to leave me out of the loop.

Jane blinks, shocked, forcing her eyes to focus once more. She sees both Jade and Feferi eyeing her, Jade with concern, Feferi with expectations. “It’s got a messaging system thing, my stepmother is texting me.” Now she looks to Jade, brows furrowed in concern. “She knows.”

####  Part 6: Roxy

“I’m just not sure that it’s a good idea to drink with the voices in your head, is all,” Callie puts her hand on Roxy’s arm, concerned.

“Nah,” Roxy scoffs. “I think it’s a great idea. Listen, these voices? They’re super chill! Rose is already like an alcoholic, it’s fine. I think Dave had something to drink on his birthday too, just between you and me.”

“And they’re both also sixteen, right?”

“Yep!”

“You don’t think that’s a little early to be an alcoholic?”

“Callie,” Roxy gestures to her room, the dishevelment of it all, the way her cardigan is around one shoulder and one elbow. “Have you  _ met _ me and how I live?” Callie laughs, which is good, that was the goal, she doesn’t like it when Callie’s uneasy or worries about her. It kills the vibe, and then Callie is upset, and that makes Roxy upset. And then they’re both upset and that’s no fun for anyone.

“Does the fact that it’s Tuesday mean anything to you?”

“It means there’s no school tomorrow, yeah,” Roxy shrugs. “Maybe for them, but not for me! I promise we won’t stay up too late. Does that make you feel better, I don't want you to worry about me.” She pulls an arm around her shoulder and squeezes, and Callie blushes which is like the best kind of reward-slash-reassurance.

“I guess so,” she sighs, grimacing. “I’ve got homework to do, and this is the designated night to talk with my family, so… I hope you have fun, with, um, the voices!”

“Yeah for sure! Let me know if you need me after you’re done talking to them, I’ll be available for you any time.” Roxy squishes her into a hug and smooches her cheek, Callie returning the gestures and gives a little wave before grabbing her bag and leaving Roxy’s dorm. Man, she wishes Callie would be her roommate. She wishes the  _ school _ didn’t require her to be in a single! But if that’s the condition for her going here at all, then she’ll live with it!

Anyways, it was time to call in the voices. Calling them voices wasn’t fair, they were also visions, and also they were real. Roxy shoves some things under the bed with her foot, trying to maintain at least some sense of decorum, and fishes out some bottles where they lay hidden under her bed. She sets them up nice on the desk, and lights a candle for good measure.

“Rose!” she calls, then thinks for a second. “Anybody else who wants to get drunk can come too!”

Rose appears as soon as she’s called, looking distinctly amused already. “Is drinking the menu for tonight?” she asks, looking at the array of beverages set out.

“Yeah!”

“And you’re aware that any of us drinking this would only serve to get  _ you _ drunk, yes?”

“Okay sure, but I’m pretty sure if I just drink all this myself you’ll probably feel something too, right? So why not make it fun?”

“That is…” Rose frowns, but she’s definitely thinking it over! She’s got one eyebrow raised and that means gears are turning. Her gaze is continually drawn to the varying types of liquor, and then she huffs. “One drink won’t kill either of us. It  _ is _ five PM on a school night, but I’ve started earlier.” She sounds a little bitter about it.

“That’s the spirit! It’ll be fun. Team bonding and all that.”

“Team bonding,” she says dryly, nodding, then looks around at all the empty space in Roxy’s dorm. “It appears to only be the two of us answering your call. I can procure some beverages of my own, and then we can get started, shall we?”

Roxy just nods and follows Rose in her world, she’s really digging the decor of the Lalonde estate. It’s all minimalistic and white, and there’s a lot of wizards on the walls. She’s really into those in particular, wizards are the best. The carpet is soft and white, and Rose leads them down a hallway from her room that overlooks the living room below, where an even  _ bigger _ wizard statue sits imposingly, at eye level with them up on the footway.

Rose leads the way to a door that turns out to be hiding  _ incredible _ amounts of booze. Seriously, Roxy’s jaw drops open as soon as they walk in. “No wonder you’re an-” she starts to say, and then remembers some form of tact and cuts herself off. Rose shoots her a half-smile half-grimace, knowing, of course, exactly what she was going to say. But no secrets between Sensates, and no secrets between fellow alcoholics.

“Yes, my mother has been quite the influence in my developmental stages.” She stops in front of the minibar, and looks back to Roxy. “What are you feeling tonight? I’ve mostly got wines, but vodka is just as easy to come by and I would be surprised if we didn’t have some tequila lying around.” She tilts her head, considering, and then says, “Well, I’m fairly certain you could find anything in here with enough digging. So take your pick.”

“Okay, this is a supes fancy,” Roxy says, “but maybe we should just do simple. I’ll stick to vodka. But I can make cocktails!”

So that’s how about an hour later, Roxy sits slumped over the back of her chair chatting with Rose, who lies on the floor on her back with one leg propped up. Her hands are folded over her stomach, and they’re just laughing back and forth, and this is really fun! It’s just after midnight where Roxy is, so they’re making sure to keep quiet, but she’s hit the point where it’s getting harder to talk and easier to laugh and she kind of wants to go to sleep but also she would be down to go to a party. So the best part. Rose looks open and she’s using smaller words for once, and with her guard loosened a bit she’s really nice to talk to!

“Don’t get mad at me, but I think y’all’ve got a bit of a drinking problem.” And then Dave’s there! He’s standing next to the bed, looking at Rose on the floor who looks up with a benign smile and Roxy, who stands up and coordinates her legs just enough to stumble over to him without stepping on Rose.

“Dave! Just the person I wanted to talk to!” She says, putting an arm on his shoulder and leaning on him. She’s got a couple inches on him heightwise, and this close she can almost see his eyes behind his sunglasses. He’s got a poker face on, so she’ll have to fuck with that a bit.

“...Yeah?” Dave asks. “Sure. Just as long as you two know that when you get drunk, we kind of all get drunk. Just. As a general heads up, I’m definitely not complaining or anything, but I figured you should know.” Rose starts giggling, and she hides it behind her hand.

“Okay! Noted!” Roxy says, disregarding this. She leans back and readjusts to put a hand firmly on his shoulder. “But we gotta talk. About the trans thing.”

Dave recoils immediately, pulling out of her grasp with an affronted noise. “The  _ what _ thing?” Oops, she might’ve come on too strong. She does some quick reevaluations of Dave and his possible comfort zones, and then decides to gently backpedal.

“Nonono, don’t freak out, it’s okay! I am too!” she says. Rose is still lying on the floor, and she hasn’t moved, but her eyes look more focused than they did a second ago. She thought Dave might be a little more chill about this, but if he wants to make this a Serious Talk instead of the fun conversation she wanted, then maybe they might need some privacy.

“I- what makes you think I’m- That?” Dave asks, fighting with his own face for control. He wants to get his pokerface back, she can tell, but he’s visibly startled. She feels bad about that, super not what she intended.

“Rosey, babe, could you give us a minute?” Roxy stage whispers, and Rose nods, closes her eyes, and then she’s gone. Roxy moves to sit on the bed, putting them more at eye level with him a little above her, maybe that’ll make him calm down a bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you! But, we’re a little bit psychically connected now, and a girl can know things pretty easy. Not prying, I just recognize the signs! I just get them the other way around!"

“I-” He puts a hand up and pinches the bridge of his nose, huffing. “I’m not really supposed to talk about it. Bro says it’ll only get my ass kicked if I go broadcasting my personal shit everywhere.”

Roxy scrunches up her face like she’s tasted something sour. “So you’ve never actually talked about it? With anybody?”

He shrugs, putting his hands into his pockets with the same motion, uncomfortable. “I’ve looked up stuff online, it’s not like I have no clue about… stuff. I’ve got the medical shit on lockdown, I’m in charge of all that. Bro’s kind of on a need-to-know basis, but we’ve. Um. Discussed.”

“But where’s your sense of  _ community _ ?” She gestures grandly with her arms, “Like not being alone and all that? Knowing other trans peeps, other gay friends?”

“I’m not gay,” Dave aserts abruptly. “And I’ve got it taken care of, it’s nobody else’s business, end of story.”

“Okay, okay,” she holds her hands up placatingly. “That’s totally cool. I just wanted to chat, thought we could bond a little, ’s all.”

Dave groans and slides down to sit on the floor with his back leaned against the bed. “Fine. What kind of wisdom have you come to seek from a one Dave Strider?”

“Oh! Um. Heh, I didn’t think that far ahead!” She hums to herself, thinking while Dave sits in a patient silence. “Okay. I didn’t have, like, parents? Or whatever your bro is? So, um, how did he take it? The news and all?”

Dave doesn’t move for a second, and then he says, “Fine I guess. He kinda just nodded and gave me a thumbs up. Then training got more intense, said I had to get better if this was what I wanted to do with my life. He gave me a couple hundreds in cash, sent me to the mall to get new clothes and shit, and when I got back there was a bonfire with like half of my stuff on the roof.”

“Okay, hold up, I have a  _ few _ questions,” Roxy says, holding up a hand. He looks up at her, perfectly passive, like half the stuff he said wasn’t crazy in any way at all. “First question: Training for what?”

“Sword fighting. It’s our thing. He had all these sweet katanas around the house and one day when I was like four I asked if he could teach me to use one. He took it super seriously, we fight every day. I still can’t beat him so usually I just get my ass kicked.”

“I- Okay. Sure,” Roxy says, confused, and a little concerned. Mostly because he wasn’t at  _ all _ concerned about this, and she felt like he probably should be? Was it her place to tell him that? “Like, really weird, and probably illegal, but… okay. Next question: What the fuck? A bonfire? Seriously?”

“Yeah, it was sweet,” Dave shrugs. “What did you do?”

“My foster moms from when I was nine figured out there was some gender fuckery going on here before I did,  _ they _ told  _ me _ . There was a lot of, like, hugging and crying involved. No bonfires!”

He snorts. “Sounds lame.” Roxy shrugs, nothing she can do about it now. “Alright well as fun as this has been, and really, had a ball here, I should go do my other shit. And I think your girlfriend’s texting you.” He taps her phone where it’s been discarded on the ground next to him, the screen lighting up every now and then.

“You mean Callie?” she asks, sliding off of the bed to join him on the floor. “Best friend! Not my girlfriend!” Dave raises one eyebrow pointedly above his shades. She rolls her eyes at him, and then checks her phone, sighing and biting her lip while she reads the spurt of texts. “Her family bonding time must not have gone that great, huh?”

“Is she chill with how much you drink?” Dave asks, out of nowhere, looking for all the world like he’d just casually asked about the weather. Roxy does a double take, registering what he asked a hot second later.

“Eh,” she shrugs, confused. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just curious. We’re, like, sixteen, and you and Rose have gotta be outliers, because as far as  _ I _ know its a bit early to be an alcoholic. Especially when you’ve got seven other people attached to your brain.”

“Hmm,” Roxy hums, tapping her fingers on her phone. “Okay, maybe I’ll work on that, and you work through your own issues, and we’ve got a deal. Yeah?”

“What issues?” he has the audacity to ask. It’s her turn to dramatically raise an eyebrow, except she kind of raises both, because expressions are a little hard to control after three matinis.

“You’ve got a lot going on my dude, ask Rose if you really need the step-by-step, she’ll psychoanalyze you without even bein’ asked. So just figure out your shit, and I’ll agree to figure out mine,” she explains, and then holds out her hand. Dave still looks as bewildered as someone with no expression and big sunglasses can look, but he reluctantly takes her hand anyways, giving it a solid shake.

“Fine, but we should probably extend this pact to the entire group, none of us fuckers are mentally stable as far as I can tell.”

“Agreed. I’ll let everybody know tomorrow, maybe the point of the Sensate stuff is to help each other, right? Otherwise what’s the point?” she asks. Dave gives her a long look, inscrutable, and then he just drops out of the conversation and vanishes. She’ll take that as agreement!

#### 

####  Part 7: Jake

On this nice Wednesday evening, about half a week into this new chapter of his life, Jake found out that being a Sensate came with some sort of ‘spidey-sense.’ Sometimes he can feel prickles of something that he can’t find the source for, and he can reasonably tell that they come from someone else, one of the other seven. As much as he wants to explore his newfound abilities, he has obligations yet that will not go away long enough for him to do what he needs to do. But he’s got superpowers, he should have been crawling around in the vents of the F.B.I or something by now, learning national secrets and then telling his superiors those secrets, so they may continue with their high-tech gadget filled espionage missions, of which he is obviously the head.

But no.  _ Emails _ . Emails all day every day, mixed in with the odd phonecall and the odd panicked intern wondering about their finances. It’s enough to drive a man mad, the constant drivel of the masses and the responsibilities and all of it! When is he supposed to sleep!

Nausea hits him like a punch to the stomach, sudden and mixed with foreboding and fear. Jake doubles over with a hand on the offending area, looking up and around with fervor, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. A phantom sensation, then, not one of his own. Yet, it’s an oddly familiar feeling. He thinks it must have been a while, a year maybe, but he’s felt this before. Still, it’s not him this time.

Someone’s in trouble, and now is Jake’s chance to go to the rescue, like a real hero!  _ Fuck _ yes!

Jake closes his eyes and does the trick that Rose taught them all, ‘expanding’ his consciousness, searching for the point of distress. It might be Dirk, or Dave, those two give off twinges of adrenaline most often, he’s so far been able to mostly tune them out because he knows that there’s nothing he can do for either of their situations. But this one seems serious.

Surprisingly, it’s John, the least likely one Jake thought would source intense, gut-wrenching emotions. Fellow had seemed relatively chill, in any case.

Jake’s standing next to John in his bedroom, slightly behind him, and he can’t pinpoint what might be causing this. John stands stock still, and he’s looking- oh. His dad stands in the doorway to his bedroom, face grave and concerned.

“Son?” John’s dad asks. John startles, another twinge coming across the link.

“Yeah, okay, do I need to pack a bag? How long do you think we’ll be there?” John asks, shaking himself the slightest bit. His dad looks a little relieved, and Jake would be too, but he can still feel the nausea rolling off of him.

“Not too long, most likely, but I think that it might be better for you to stay here for the night. I can call with updates, but really, there’s no reason to subject you to this tonight,” his dad explains, wrapping and unwrapping the end of his tie around his hand in a nervous gesture.

“Are you sure?” John protests weakly. “You don’t need help with anything?”

“I’ve got it taken care of, don’t worry about it,” dad says gently, and then approaches John with his arms out. John accepts the hug, and then his dad says goodbye, and leaves the room.

Jake reaches out a hand and pokes the back of John’s arm with a finger. John jumps as if jolted, spinning around and nearly tripping over his own feet. “What!”

“Apologies, didn’t mean to startle you!” Jake says. He’s slowly realizing that this might be less of an action mission and more of an… emotional one. He’s much less proficient in this area, but it would be remiss of him to just up and leave now! So he asks, “What’s happening?”

John looks to the door again for a second, “Oh. My nanna started throwing up, she’s going to the hospital for the night. She’s, um, sick. She’s been sick for a while, now.”

“That explains the gut-punch,” Jake says slowly.

“You felt that too? Sorry,” John says sheepishly. His eyes look heavy, is the only word Jake can think of to describe it. Like if Jake wasn’t here he’d be having some sort of breakdown. He’s just so  _ ill-equipped  _ to handle this right now.

“Not to worry, I’ve felt it before. My… Well, my gran got very ill like this a while ago,” Jake explains. “So I… know how it feels,” he frowns awkwardly.

“I’m sorry?” John asks. He thinks over his next words carefully for a moment, saying them slowly, “Did she get better?”

Jake closes his eyes, taking a breath. “No.” He opens his eyes and attempts to brighten his demeanor, because isn’t he supposed to be helping here? “But that doesn’t mean that yours won’t, of course.”

Now both of them are uncomfortable. John sighs after a bit, breaking the silence, “She’s been sick for a really long time. I’m used to this.”

“It’s still hard,” Jake nods, understanding. “That’s my gran,” he points to the portrait of her handing up in her old office. “People still think she heads English Wildlife preserves.” John now stands in front of Jake’s desk, turning to look up at the picture taking up half the wall.

“How does that work?”

“Not very well!” Jake admits, biting his lip. “I sort of forgot to tell anyone that she died. Oh, please don’t tell anyone, by the by. I’m not technically allowed to run the preserve until I’m eighteen.”

John just looks bewildered. He’s suitably distracted, which is all he could have hoped for, but he’s not sure if it was a wise decision to give up his secrets so loosely. This had been so closely guarded, only himself and two others in the world knew, one of whom was on a different continent. John seems to be a trustworthy chap so far, in his eyes, but Jake might have considered being a touch more careful. In any case the cat’s out of the bag now.

“That’s- okay. Okay, sure, I’m not going to tell anyone,” John says, still deep within the throes of confusion. Jake realizes once again that this might not be considered ‘doing the comforting thing,’ still.

“Um,” Jake says, searching for something to say. John’s room is an array of various movie posters, similar to Jake’s, but it’s clear they have different taste in movies. Not nearly enough blue people, though Howie Mandel might count…? He certainly is painted blue. Jake’s never seen Little Monsters, but now he supposes he has an obligation to. Perhaps he could watch it with John! ...Another time!

John’s been shuffling his feet, and now he collapses to sit on the bed in resignation to an awkward silence in a tense situation. “Man. You know what the worst part of this is?”

“What?” Jake asks, almost nervously. He doesn’t know how this conversation could get any worse, and he worries. It still hasn’t really occurred to him that he can leave at any time.

“My dad’s gonna bake so many cakes tomorrow. Like,  _ so _ many. Consolation cakes or whatever. He’ll say they’re for me, but we both know they’re really for him. It’s so obvious.” John cracks a grin and, well, Jake can’t say he was expecting that.

He laughs awkwardly because he doesn’t really get the joke, but laughing is better than sitting and being miserable and worried, naturally. “Strikingly obvious.”

And since this conversation feels like pulling teeth, Jake’s incredibly grateful when his private cell phone starts to ring. God, he hopes it’s urgent. He looks up to John for a second, apologetic, and John gestures, saying, “Go ahead, man. I’ll be fine.”

“You will be fine! Try to, erm, get a decent night’s rest!” Jake says with a thumbs up and a weak smile. He pulls out his phone and then he’s alone again, only the vaguest phantom sensations of John’s inner turmoil still prickling at him.

He’s barely answered the phone when a harried voice comes through. “Jake, we have a situation. Where are you?”

“In my bedroom. You sound out of sorts, what’s the matter?” Jake asks.

“Okay. Stay there until someone comes and gets you, okay?” Serenity hangs up on him. He can only look at his phone in bafflement, wondering what his secretary/advisor/second in command was on about now. She had been there for him since before his Gran had been sick, and was there with him when she died. He quite literally could not have kept the preserve or his own position afloat without her. If something has rattled her so, it has to be serious.

Jake frowns at his phone and slides it into his pocket, going over to his bedroom window from which he can see the preserve headquarters neighboring the estate. Nothing seems remiss, though there is a large black car in the driveway. And Jake has seen movies, of  _ course _ . Something’s wrong. And he’s also not going to stay put. What kind of hero would he be then?

Jake leaves his room and carefully makes his way downstairs to the living room. The trouble seems to be at the office, but he’s going to be careful regardless.

He’s carefully watching the front door, calculating his next move, when it throws itself open, making him nearly jump out of his skin. Jake puts a wall between himself and the door, peeking his head around the corner, and is able to relax just a tidbit when he sees that it’s not a mysterious assailant, nor a devious adversary. No, it’s just one of his security detail, followed quickly by Serenity herself.

“I told you to stay put,” Serenity says, sighing. Jake rolls his eyes, and she continues, “Should have known you wouldn’t, I guess. You’ve got the adventurer’s spirit, like your gran.” She readjusts herself to her surroundings, nodding to the security guard. Jake’s fairly certain that the man’s name is Keith, but he isn’t entirely sure and he’s not wearing any name badge or anything, which is awfully inconsiderate.

“What’s all the fuss about, then?” Jake asks. Probably-Keith closes the door behind her and stands in front of it, while Serenity takes a look around the room. It’s just the three of them.

“Your gran had some enemies. I’ll tell you more later, but we need to get somewhere safe. There’s a secured area under the house-”

“The one in the fireplace?” Jake asks, surprised, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve opened it before, you just pull the brick out and push a button. That one?”

“You- Yeah, that one,” Serenity nods. “Explored a bit, have you?”

“I’ve got the adventurer’s spirit.”

“Did you go inside?”

“Um… Well, no, I didn’t want to disturb anything,” Jake lies. He’d been so surprised that he’d forgotten to actually go down the tunnel, and when the idea later occured to him, it made him strikingly nervous. He’d resolved to go down it, ...someday.

“That’s probably for the better. Come on,” Serenity says. She crouches by the fireplace and slides out one of the bricks on the side of the mantle, the one that always looked a little loose.

Keith stays up in the house while Jake and Serenity make their way down the tunnel that shifts open in the back of the grand fireplace. There’s dim lighting that Jake can’t really find the source of, emitting from the walls, but it makes a few turns, until they arrive at an elevator that drops them down far below the earth. They emerge into a room that looks old and unused, but what was once a sterile-looking laboratory.

Three people seem to leave the elevator, only two physically there. Jake sees Dirk step into place beside him, looking around with passive curiosity. Not wanting Serenity to think any different of him, Jake doesn’t say anything, but looks at Dirk until he thinks their eyes maybe meet, and he gives him a nod.

Serenity leads them through the front room, with only metal chrome walls and Spartan decor. There’s some metal machinery stuff that Jake can’t make heads or tails of, and when Serenity flips a switch outside the elevator everything hums to life and creates a background noise of buzzing machinery.

“So. The preserve,” Serenity begins to explain, while he snaps his head around in every direction, taking it all in even though in this front room there’s not a lot to take in at all. A big logo on the wall reads English Wildlife Preserve, which is almost comforting in its familiarity. “It’s not just a preserve. We’re organized to combat an empire, one that most people don’t realize exists.”

“I- Sure, that’s all just dandy, but what was the ruckus upstairs? You seemed worried about it,” Jake asks. Next to him, Dirk raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t have the proper state of mind to have two separate conversations at once, right now.

“They’re starting to catch on to us, I think. We haven’t been as active recently, after, well-” she cuts herself off. Jake nods, losing the head of any organization to msyterious illness would throw them all out of sorts. He wonders if Dirk is following. He sure doesn’t emote very much, so Jake can never tell. “But that leaves only a more concerning alternative. That they’ve known about us all along, and have just chosen now to make a move.”

“But who is  _ them _ ? I’m not playing the pronoun game with you, Serenity,” Jake says, crossing his arms.

“Not to mention this all seems like some unnecessary plot bullshit,” Dirk mutters next to him. Jake is inclined to agree on some level, but on all other levels he’s a tad excited.

“SkaiaNet. CrockerCorp, the Peixes, all of them combined under one rule. We’re one of the last places with power not under the influence of Meenah Peixes, and we really would rather stay that way. We can’t do that if they assassinate you.”

“Oh,” Jake says, lost for words. “...So she wants to form a superempire? And we’re the last ones resisting her?”

“There’s a few others, actually, but this is the main branch, especially since the Harley Foundation was compromised. We’ve got to be  _ very _ careful.” She looks at Jake very seriously, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Stay here until it’s all sorted out. We’re probably overreacting, but we can’t be too careful, and we can’t afford to lose the last heir of Judy English.”

He’s momentarily stunned by the gravity in her voice. “I will,” he says after a second. “You promise to be careful, too, Serenity!”

She’s already walking away, but she turns and gives him a little salute with a smile. It doesn't ease his nerves. Dirk’s quiet presence next to him doesn’t help much either.

#### 

####  Part 8: Dirk

Jake’s weird grandmother’s even weirder basement laboratory doesn’t really register as all that weird anymore, not after the week he’s had. It hasn’t even  _ been _ a week, but time seems like it’s going at breakneck speed, what with all the rush of getting seven people crammed into his head leading to seven new lives to explore and dissect. So no, a secret laboratory can’t really compare with the concept of being a Sensate, nor with whatever’s going on with Jane and her new tech from her stepmom. Dirk’s resolved to keep an eye on that one, he doesn’t trust it.

But who is Dirk to ignore it when Jake’s landed himself in some cliché action movie.

Serenity’s the perfect person in place to have a hidden identity as a secret agent, after all. She turns and leaves the room while Jake’s mind is surely reeling after the knowledge bomb that he’s the head of a secret organization, and now Dirk has to step in. “I’ll do some reconnaissance, you explore your new underground bunker. We’ve got a sure connection to the Condescension, we should use it.”

“What the blazes is going on?” Jake asks slowly, gradually coming back to his senses from the shock.

“Vive la résistance,” Dirk says. “There’s been buzz about Skaianet for a while, everyone’s sure there’s something shady going on. Guess we were right.”

Dirk leaves Jake without another word and pops in to wherever the hell Jane is right now. And Jade, along with her. Those two are sort of a package deal for the foreseeable future. What Dirk is not prepared for is to immediately be face to face with the Condescension herself.

Jade and Jane both turn to look at him, and head honcho Peixes turns to look at him too, but he can’t actually tell if she can see him. It’s unnerving. Little Peixes is here too, but she looks much more confused with the sudden silence.

Jane stares at him calmly while Jade does a quick nervous glance to the Condesce, who seems to perpetually grin. “We gotta visitor?” she asks, raising both eyebrows at the two. Dirk looks to the girls and lets them make the first move. He thinks that it would be a mistake to accuse the Condesce of conspiracy right in front of her, but he is determined to fulfill this reconnaissance mission.

“Yes, one of my cluster. What’s wrong, Dirk? I can feel Jake panicking from here. John, too.” Jane is perfectly composed, her red tiaratop sitting high on her forehead. Jade fidgets nervously next to her, biting her lip, not saying anything, keeping a slight distance between where they sit together on the couch. Meenah Peixes sits on a couch across from them, while Feferi is on an armchair between them.

Dirk’s head takes all of this into account while he puzzles out what to do next. “Jake is safe. I don’t know what John’s doing. How is  _ this _ doing?” He raises one hand to flip at the scene before him.

“Fine,” Jane says. “My stepmother, and my stepsister, are both Sensates as well,” she gestures to both of them.

“Can they…?” He taps his ear.

“Hear you? No. Jade, can you handle this, please?”

Jade taps Dirk’s shoulder, suddenly standing next to him not in the Condesce’s penthouse, but on the roof of the parking garage he finds himself on this morning in Bremen. He’s sitting on the ledge bordering the roof, but he stands when Jade asks for his attention. She’s an inch taller than him, which is fucking impressive.

“Dirk, I’m worried about Jane,” Jade begins. “She’s… colder. I’m pretty sure it’s the tiaratop, because Feferi kind of does the same thing when she’s wearing hers. But Jane hasn’t taken it off since yesterday!”

Dirk heaves a breath through his nose. “Right. One crisis at a time.” His mind, of course, is perfectly capable of handling all of them. He’s already resolved to check in on John, because he felt the spike of panic just like everyone else, but that had settled down into a quiet unease. Jake’s had continued, and that’s when he decided to deal with that. And now he’s dealing with Jane, and Jade’s problems with Jane. “Jake’s house is under attack, possibly by people there under the Condesce’s orders.”

“The Condesce?” Jade asks, tilting her head to the side and frowning.

“I guess. His grandma apparently runs a secret resistance, there’s an underground bunker and everything. There’s layers and layers of bullshit happening over in the Jake zone.” Dirk doesn’t shrug. A normal person might have, but Dirk is very good at standing perfectly still.

“She definitely  _ was _ asking Jane for details about the cluster last night, but I thought she was just being a good stepmom! Damn it, if John was right this entire time I swear to  _ fucking God _ ,” she grumbles angrily to herself. She heaves a sigh. “Well, this isn’t good! How can we fix it?” she asks. Practical. Dirk decided he liked her, even if telling Meenah Peixes  _ anything at all  _ was stupid and tempting fate. And maybe he could also ask John how  _ he _ knew that Peixes was up to something.

“Well. We figure out why the Condesce is messing with Jake, first. Then we take precautions. Step one is probably to get the tiaratop off of Jane. Think you can handle that?” Dirk explains.

“Probably?” Jade bites her lip again.

“Cool. I’ll see what Jake’s gotten himself into.” Dirk blinks behind his shades and Jade’s gone, by his will, and he blinks again to reappear next to Jake, who is not where he left him. He did, after all, tell him to explore.

Jake is standing in front of a large screen, tapping through various images and live feeds. It’s a simple CCTV system, offering different views of the surrounding areas and other rooms in the bunker. Jake pauses on the feed of the preserve across the road. He doesn’t notice Dirk.

The black SUV is still there, a Yukon that looks relatively new, all of its doors hanging open. At least four assailants from the vehicle, then. The door to the building is open too, but otherwise everything looks still. Seems like most people had gone home for the night, which seems like a massive oversight for someone as organized and determined as the Condesce seems to be. Hmm.

“They’re trying to be tricky,” he informs Jake. “Keep on alert.”

Jake jumps, because he was not on alert, and accidentally bangs his hand into the control panel. “Criminey, Dirk, we need to put a bell on you,” he swears, examining his fist for damage. At worst it  _ might _ bruise. “What’ve they got up their sleeves, then?”

“Not sure yet. Who’s in the building?” Dirk asks, with a miniscule gesture to the screen.

“Just security and janitors, I’d assume,” Jake frowns and switches through camera feeds. Many of them show the interior of the preserve, most show no activity. That is, until they reach the camera showing Jake’s office. There are three men inside, one staring at the wall with Jake’s grandma’s portrait and certificates, one rooting through the desk, and one looking into the filing cabinet.

“Do you know what they’re after?”

“No, haven’t the faintest,” Jake shrugs. “Why don’t we just ask them?”

“Because that’s a shit idea,” Dirk says, but Jake has already pulled out his cell phone and dialed it. Dirk clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath of disappointment. “Damn it.”

On the screen, all three men turn towards the phone sitting on the desk. There’s no sound, and the picture is in black and white, but at least it’s in real time as the three exchange looks, some silent words, and then one carefully picks up the phone. He’s the one who had been looking through the desk.

He picks it up, and on Jake’s end there’s a click, but he doesn’t say anything. Jake opens his mouth to say something, but he looks confused and Dirk thinks that he’ll definitely say something idiotic.

So Dirk snatches the phone out of Jake’s hand. “Jake English speaking. What do you want?” His impression is piss poor because he’s not trying, but it doesn’t matter. On the screen, the tallest one holding the phone covers the speaker with a hand and says something unintelligible to the other two. He’s got a dignified look to him, while the short one looks perpetually confused in the same way that Jake does, and the third one is of average height and looks pissed in a way that Dirk presumes is his default setting.

“What’ve you got?” the man on the phone asks. “Secrets? Valuables? Information?” While he talks he picks through the documents lying open on the desk.

Dirk lowers the phone and looks to Jake. “Anything?”

“I’ll see where Serenity went,” he says in a low voice, tapping on the console. There’s only one large screen, so he has to switch away from the office. There’s another man, big and beefy, standing guard right outside the office. Other than that, the building looks abandoned.

“Nothing you’re interested in, gentlemen,” Dirk says into the phone. “So I suggest you leave.”

They find Serenity creeping into the preserve through one of the back doors, and she passes two knocked out security guards. She’s got a handgun, holding it out cautiously in front of her as she slowly makes her way to the office.

“Oh, we won’t be long,” the voice on the phone says. Dirk gestures to Jake, and the screen, and he flips it back to the office.

“Shit,” Dirk says under his breath. The office is empty besides the man on the phone. The other two are missing. Jake quickly looks through the feeds again, finding the big guy gone as well, and now they can’t find Serenity, either.

“Remind me Jake, how’s your grandma doing? It’s been so long since we’ve talked.” Jake’s head snaps up at that, looking at Dirk and the phone, and Dirk just hands the phone to him.

“What do you know about my gran?” Jake asks, fighting to keep a level tone. He flips one more screen and finds the exact moment where Serenity is clocked over the head with a fist. She crumples to the ground, the big guy behind her, and the angry and short ones on either side of him.

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To get to know more, assuming that there  _ is _ more to know. Anyways, Jake, it’s been fun, but I think it’s time to go. Good luck running the place by yourself. And just try to stay out of our way, okay?” The line clicks dead.

“I think they know my gran’s dead,” Jake says, face pale.

“What?”

“Oh boy, she’s left a right mess behind, hasn’t she?” he chuckles nervously to himself, ignoring Dirk’s question and frowning heavily as he watches the men take Serenity’s gun and go through her pockets. They take her phone, and from her wallet her identity badge with her keycard. Next time, they won’t need to break in. Dirk can’t tell if they got what they came for or not. “Well, I suppose it’s action time!”

“Jake- wait-” Dirk starts, but Jake starts running from the security monitor room, through other rooms that Dirk doesn’t have time to examine while he chases after him, until they’re sloping up and Jake hops into the elevator, fidgeting with adrenaline while the doors close and they slowly travel upwards. Dirk asks, “What’s your plan, here?”

“Fight them off myself, if I have to,” Jake answers, pulling a pistol out from the back waistband of his pants.

“Where did you get that?”

“There’s a weapons storage down there, found it while I was exploring. I know how to use it, not to worry, my gran taught me.”

“Fucking christ,” Dirk mutters. He might not be able to help Jake, nor stop him, but he can at least stand witness. He knows that Jake can’t do this alone, no matter if anything he does will make a difference. The elevator doors open and Jake runs out, running through a short sloped tunnel.

There’s a guy standing at the entrance to the tunnel, but Jake doesn’t look surprised, and this one isn’t wearing the same uniform as the four intruders to the preserve. “Jake,” the man says, putting out an arm to catch him around the middle and lift his feet into the air. “You’re supposed to stay put.”

“Serenity’s compromised, let me go, Keith,” Jake argues, struggling against the man’s grip. At least that’s confirmation that this isn’t another enemy. “Dirk, help me out, here!”

Keith looks though Dirk, who says, “No, I’m with him.” He gestures to Keith with his thumb. Jake makes a frustrated noise.

Suddenly Serenity herself bursts through the front door to Jake’s house, looking harried, a small trickle of blood running down her temple. Dirk analyzes and diagnoses her as having a concussion, though not a severe one. At the sight of Jake she lets out a sigh of relief and some of the tension seems to leak out of her.

“Good, you’re safe. Next time stay put,” she says. Keith puts Jake down, and Serenity holds out her hand for the pistol, which Jake reluctantly relinquishes. “They were looking for information on  _ you _ , you know. So. If you’ve got any secrets, you need to tell me, understand?”

Jake looks to Dirk like he’s asking for permission. “The Condesce seems to have a thing for Sensates. I’d keep that under wraps for now,” Dirk advises. After all, she already had three at the moment, two of them under questionable mind control. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that she would try to go after Jake now. Letting anyone else in on their status looks like to much of a risk.

Jake doesn’t say anything, just nods his head. Serenity sighs. “I’ll make the police report, I guess. They should already be on their way after the alarm went off.”

“I’m going to check in on some of my other sources, see if anyone can tell me more about Sensate stuff in general. I’ll check in with you all later,” Dirk says to Jake. Jake nods again, silently, and Dirk pops out of his world and back into his own. Poor kid looked pretty rattled. But he’d get over it. Now to see what he can find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update: i really really like writing Rose and Roxy, Dave too, Dirk is great, Jane and Jade are fun because they advance the plot, John despite being my favorite character is real hard to write, and if the epilogue hadn't set me firmly aboard the "jake deserves better" train then i'd tell him to go fuck himself because he's really hard to write! help!
> 
> i said i wouldn't post this until i'd written most of chapter 3, and i lied! i haven't even really started chapter 3, so sorry, it probably won't go up for a while. unless i had some, per se... motivation? yeah anyways, tell me what you think, anything you like/dislike, anything you think will/should happen, etc, fuel meee


	3. Spices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now with a higher percentage of trolls than ever before! also, plot development! also also, character development!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if i'm handling anything..... badly

####  Part 1: John

The speed that it took for the week after John’s birthday to go from great and awesome to tragic and upsetting was just insane. He’s trying really hard to keep his spirits up, but with his nanna in the hospital in… less than ideal condition over the past couple days, it’s almost impossible to keep up with schoolwork and also whatever’s going on on the other side of the world. With so much on his mind he mostly just wants to tune out and think about a new comic issue or something. Just, something else.

The only thing he knows for sure is that his grades are going to start slipping. He knows that there’s a lot more important things happening at the moment, world-wide conspiracies, super powers, and real life tragedies, but that one detail sticks out in his head. Nevertheless, he absolutely cannot convince his brain to parse out its own static long enough to do any of his damn classwork. So he’ll just sit here, stewing, with his backpack next to him open enough to reveal papers, folders, notebooks, and binders, things that will remain untouched until his brain finally sorts itself out. Which John hopes will be soon.

There’s a storm brewing outside, which would be poetically appropriate if he didn’t live in Seattle, where this is just another Friday. There’s also a girl passed out asleep in his bed, who he knows is Roxy, and upon asking his other clustermates if sleep visiting is a real thing or something he should be concerned about, he’s been assured that “she just does this, don’t worry about it.” But that means his bed is occupied, sort of, so he’s sitting at his computer desk watching the screensaver bounce around.

Wow, okay, he’s sick of just sitting here stewing like the weather. It’s time to explore some of his new  _ super powers _ . Long overdue, actually! He stands up from his chair and flicks on the lights, making his room look less gloomy already. With a glance he confirms that Roxy doesn’t stir, because he has no idea what time it is in France and he’d feel bad if he kept her up. But that would be a good starting place, right?

John focuses on the thought of Roxy, and pops into her room. It’s a dark dorm room, with just the one twin sized bed, the blinds are down and all the way closed to block out any light at all. She’s sleeping on her stomach with one arm hanging down off the bed, and her hair falls over her face in strawberry blonde tangles and pink streaks. Her alarm clock on the nightstand next to her reads 2:00, which he assumes is in AM. The dorm is trashed, with papers and clothes scattered around. There’s also a bottle or two, but he’s noticed she’s been drinking a little less since whatever her talk with Dave was.

He tries to nudge a bottle with his finger, but his hand goes through. He glances at Roxy again, who hasn’t stirred, and wonders if this is weird. He can’t interact with anything in her room, but what if he poked Roxy? Would she feel it? Would she wake up? ...Nah, he’s not going to test that right now. That would be rude.

Instead he goes back to his own room, and thinks about who else might be awake. ...Probably most of them. He’s aware he’s the latest in terms of time zones, everyone else is ahead of him, but they’re either also in the States or they’re far enough ahead that it’s morning time. Most of the cluster seems like early risers anyway. Roxy and Dirk in Europe are probably both asleep, but- Oh. No, he can kind of  _ feel _ that Dirk is awake. Weird. That’s really the only feeling John gets from him, too.

“Hello?” John asks, appearing next to Dirk. He takes a look around, realizing that they’re standing in a park under the shade of some trees, not that shade matters since it’s long past midnight.

“John,” Dirk says with the slightest dip of his head. He’s smoking a cigarette, a realization that makes John frown with both disapproval and worry. “Been meaning to ask you, what do you know about CrockerCorp?”

“...CrockerCorp?” John asks, confused.

“Jade said you might know something?”

“Oh! Um, I don’t really  _ know _ things about it, but there’s a lot of conspiracy theories about Meenah Peixes and Skaianet, is that what she meant?” he guesses. Dirk shrugs. “Okay, well, there’s the classic, that Peixes looks way too young for her age, and she keeps collecting new businesses and consolidating them together. She’s like the classic immortal power hungry big business villain, I guess.”

“She’s also a Sensate,” Dirk supplies.

“What? Seriously?” John blinks and takes in this information. “Huh. I honestly don’t really know where that fits in. Are Sensates immortal?”

“Not as far as we know. You should also know that Jane’s probably being mind controlled. We’re working on it, but her and Jade are deep in dangerous territory right now.”

John does not know how to respond to that information. Dirk takes another drag of his cigarette, and unfortunately, John can feel and worse  _ taste  _ all of that too. He wrinkles up his face in disgust.

“I should probably apologize for being a dick, by the way.” Dirk says everything in a very flat tone, throwing everything out like it’s an indisputable fact with no inflection or emotion to be found. His face is the same, stony behind his ridiculous anime sunglasses. It’s literally the dead of night, why does he do this? How does he see?

“Thanks?” John says, realizing he should probably respond. “It was, um, a weird situation. I don’t really blame you!” Though the apology does make him feel a lot better about Dirk as a general human being.

“Really?” Dirk turns to face him slightly, raising one eyebrow, which almost makes John jump with the sudden expressions going on here. “Alright. Cool. Is that Roxy on your bed?”

With the question, John’s suddenly taken out of the German park and back into his room. “Yeah,” he shrugs. “She’s sleeping. Sleep-visiting? I don’t know if there’s a technical term.” Dirk gives a slight nod.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” he says, and then vanishes. John blinks a couple times, not knowing what to make of that, which is usually how he feels around like half of the cluster anyway. They’re all a bunch of weirdos, huh?

John figures that if he’s got Sensate questions, Jade, Rose, or Jane would be his most likely bet. Then again… Maybe he wants to figure this out on his own, actually do the puzzle instead of being told the solution. Why should they know all that much more than him, anyway? None of them knew Sensates existed before a week ago, except Jade. He can talk to her later.

He can also hear music that isn’t his own, so he’ll make a stop before continuing on this world tour. John follows the music, and finds himself next to Dave, who he hasn’t really seen a lot of yet. He’s sitting in front of his computer, with a music mixing thing on his lap that lights up with different colors whenever Dave presses a square. He probably can’t hear anything with the big headphones on, and he probably can’t see John either with his sunglasses on indoors at night.

“Sounds good,” John comments, and he means that. There’s definitely a rhythm going on, and he can tell Dave’s just improvising with different sounds and melodies. Dave tenses the slightest bit at the sound of his voice, which he can only hear through the headphones because John’s just in his head already, but he covers it up with a slight nod.

“Yeah,” he mutters under his breath. He puts the pad back onto the desk, pressing play on a track on his laptop labelled ‘mixnumberwhatthefuckever.’ It’s sort of similar to what he was playing before, but a little more defined and polished. Definitely in Dave’s own distinct style. He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through Instagram.

“You make music?” John prods, feeling a bit ignored.

Dave relocates their conversation to be in John’s room once again. “Yeah, I do mixing and stuff. Can’t play real instruments for shit but I’m vain enough to say that I’ve got a good touch.”

“It’s pretty good,” John repeats, nodding. In Dave’s world, he’s sitting absentmindedly on his phone. It’s weird, usually they don’t try to multitask like that, from what John has seen so far. “...Are you ignoring me?”

Dave catches his glance, looking at him over his sunglasses for a second. Back in John’s room, he explains, “Nah, sorry. My bro’s catching on, he’s really suspicious right now. So it’s probably best he doesn’t think I’m hearing voices. I mean he’s already seen it and there’s no uncrossing that bridge now that it’s been thoroughly crossed but we’re doing some damage control, okay? He definitely already thinks I’m insane though.”

“Sure, makes sense,” John shrugs. “But he’s not around, is he? Shouldn’t you be fine just in your room?”

“You’d think, right? Nah, he’s probably got a couple cameras in here by now. Before that was like a line that we didn’t cross, bedroom was my space, but that defense kind of falls through under suspicion of insanity,” Dave explains. He looks over at Roxy, who’s still sleeping, snoring now, even, and takes it in stride, not even questioning it. John wonders how often she does this.

“Alright, well, I was just experimenting with the new superpowers. So we can definitely hear each other’s music if we want, and apparently have sleepovers,” John gestures to Roxy, then to the button pad. “Can I try using your mixing thingy?”

Dave hesitates, but silently reaches over and casually adjusts it so that John can use it at his angle. John presses a square, lighting it up blue, and he can hear through Dave’s headphones when a staccato drum beat kicks in. “That’s at a different BPM entirely,” Dave complains in a low voice, taking over again and turning off the sample.

“Sorry, I just play piano,” John apologizes sheepishly. “But, we proved that I can interact with it at all, so that’s neat.”

“Piano you say?” Dave echoes. “Okay, we can work with that, actually.” He reaches under his desk and pulls out a really short keyboard, holding maybe one and a half octaves worth of keys. He pulls out some more wires, plugs them into his computer, and presses the record button, a little red light on the keyboard flicking on. “Play me a ditty and make it good, I want to see what happens.”

John doesn’t see a reason not to, so he leans over Dave’s chair and uses just his right hand to play a few measures of a really simple melody. When he’s done, Dave hits the button again, ending the recording, and then plays it back, sounding exactly like John played it. “Guess I’m not just in your head, then?”

“Guess not. Just to be sure though,” Dave says, holding his phone out like he’s taking a selfie. The phone’s in his left hand. “Play it again.”

John glances nervously at the camera, but he doesn’t show up on it at all. Dave looks like he’s alone, looking over and nodding encouragingly to no one when he starts recording the video. But John has to watch his fingers to play it right, so he focuses on that. He asks, “So what does that look like?”

“Let’s see,” Dave says. He plays the video, and it looks for all appearances like Dave’s looking dead into the camera behind his shades, holding it up with his left hand while his right hand perfectly plays the keys. “Okay so is this some kind of body possession shit because I’m not entirely sure I gave my full consent, here. John, are you some kind of vengeful ghost, because legally you have to tell me.”

“I don’t think so! It looks more like we’re  _ sharing _ a body than that,” John comments, frowning. He gently takes Dave’s phone and watches the video again, kind of hating the way Dave’s hand looks like it moves completely on its own. He wonders if to outsiders it looks like Dave is just watching the same video on his phone several times over. The idea of other video cameras being in the room makes him uneasy.

“Someone’s home,” Dave says suddenly, and John assumes that’s on his end, but Dave’s specifically looking towards  _ John’s _ bedroom door. He gives Dave a confused look, and Dave explains, “Just heard the door open and shut, it sounds like only one person. You just live with your dad, right?”

“And my nanna,” John corrects, suddenly anxious once more. Now that he knows his dad is home, it feels like it takes an eternity for him to come up the stairs and finally give John an update.

“That’s more bad feelings than I’ve had my entire life, dude,” Dave comments, looking uncomfortable. “You good?”

John waves a hand at Dave. “Shhh,” he shushes, eyes glued to the door. Finally there’s a quiet hesitant knock, and he calls, “Come in.”

John’s dad opens the door carefully, and comes in, which is already a bad sign. Usually he’ll just poke his head in, or stay in the doorway. He comes in, and closes the door behind him. “Son.”

“How’s nanna?” He’d been with her in the hospital all day, while John had been at school. He’d had to ride the bus home for the first time in years. His dad doesn’t respond, taking a breath like he’s trying to, but from the expression on his face John can kind of guess what he’s going to say. “...Is she…?”

His dad nods, looking relieved he didn’t have to be so blunt. “She passed this afternoon. If you… need anything, or need to talk about anything, I’m here, alright son?”

“Okay, dad, thanks,” John says, mind suddenly a million miles away with the news. He’d call his thoughts racing, but he doesn’t have any distinct words going through his head. But the ‘nothings’ are going through very fast, making him slightly dizzy. He convinces himself to walk forward the few steps to give his dad a hug, because he probably needs it more than John does. His dad keeps a tight grip around him for a second, not saying anything, and then carefully lets go with an understanding nod, and leaves the room.

Dave is still there. John doesn’t know why he keeps having witnesses for stressful emotional times, first Rose when he got the call Nanna was getting worse, then Jake when she had to go to the hospital. Oh, and Roxy is still here, too. But he’d sort of like to be alone right now?

“So… are you… okay?” Dave says slowly, tense and slightly panicked. It would be funny on any other day. John just shrugs, sitting back down on his desk chair and spinning it in a slow circle, kicking his feet around. “I, um, never met my grandparents, if that makes you… I guess, I don’t understand what you’re going through? But I imagine it’s hard, and I’m here for you, buddy.”

Dave pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. John musters up a little smile, because it really is funny how hard he’s trying and how badly he’s failing. “Thanks, man.”

“Dave you fucking suck at this,” Roxy quietly calls from the other side of the room, having apparently woken up at some point, startling them but effectively getting their attention. She pats the bed space next to her. “John. Come lay down, you’ll feel better.”

“Okay I’m just gonna-” Dave meets Roxy’s eyes and she gives him a nod in permission to leave, and then he vanishes.

####  Part 2: Rose

Things have been tense in the Lalonde house as of late. Rose catches glimpses of her mother out of the corner of her eye with an alarming frequency that is an entirely new development, whereas before she could go for days without any sightings at all. Her mother has also taken to carrying around a journal that she scribbles down notes in, especially when Rose talks to herself. Then she pretends she has done nothing of the sort when Rose looks over at her in disdain.

She’s been seeing Kanaya more, too, and though they have different enough schedules that there isn’t time to talk during school, twice in the past week she has driven Rose home, even though she lives so far out of the way. It’s very kind of her.

John’s a whole country away, but all of them felt it when he got the news of his grandmother’s passing. Rose has elected to give him space until he feels he is ready to talk. She knows that Roxy has been there for him, and Dave too, even though it’s obvious that he would rather be anywhere else. John is being taken care of, she can tell that he’s asleep at the moment as well, so she won’t worry herself too much.

That was all last night, and now Rose sits in a private library study room, where Kanaya will be meeting her soon. With both Jane and Feferi so thoroughly compromised with whatever Her Condescension is up to, Kanaya is their best source of information beyond the man who first awakened Rose and presumably the others, though none say they ever saw him.

Ah, there’s Kanaya now. She peeks in the window in the door first before entering, and then gracefully sits down at the table across from Rose.

“Hello, Rose. You may begin your interrogation,” Kanaya says with a smile. Rose looks at the door to confirm that it is closed, that they are in real privacy that she can no longer achieve at home. Her mother cannot eavesdrop here.

“Thank you. Lovely to see you as always,” Rose responds. She leans forward, tucking her feet under her chair and resting her chin on her hands. “So. You’re a Sensate.”

“Yes, that is quite clear by now.”

“Alright then. How long have you been a Sensate?”

“My cluster had our awakening when we were thirteen. That is very young, from what I can gather.” Kanaya hums to herself, and Rose lets her go on at her own pace. Whatever information she chooses to share, Rose will be grateful. “And there are twelve of us, which I also gather is very unusual.”

Rose blinks in surprise. “Twelve? How can you stand having so much in your head? And for so long?”

“Admittedly we have lost contact with a few. I only regularly speak to about five of them, or six on rare occasions. Several of them are entirely unlikable.” Kanaya takes a sip from a thermos she has brought with her. “What about yours?”

Rose thinks about her own cluster for a moment, going through each one as a list in her head. “I like all of them so far,” she shrugs. “They’re very nice, though some seem to be closed off emotionally, thus making it harder to get a fair judge of character.”

“You will get to know them very well soon enough,” Kanaya reassures her. “Being mentally linked tends to expedite the friendship courting process.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She frowns. “But how can you cut off contact with your cluster like that? Aren’t you always connected?”

“Well, there are blockers of course,” she says. Rose looks at her in confusion. “Blockers are pills that neutralize your Sensate abilities so you cannot visit or share.”

“Where do you go to get those?” Rose wonders. “I can’t imagine there being a store for Sensates just lying around.”

“Oh, I assure you, it is a highly illegal black market drug, and it is very difficult to get a hold of. It helps to know people.”

“Hmm,” Rose hums. She can’t imagine a scenario where she would want to use those. Having her cluster on hand seems like it can’t be anything but a benefit, even if it can be quite distracting from the real world. “Useful information regardless, I suppose. How did you learn all of this?”

“Experience mostly. Our cluster’s mother did not stay around for long after she awakened us. We had to learn a lot ourselves.”

Rose sits more upright, curiosity piqued. “Your cluster’s mother? I don’t think we’ve ever met our own parent. A different man came to me and awakened us remotely, he said that our mother was busy.”

“That is very strange,” Kanaya says, frowning. “You should be in frequent contact with your mother, she is supposed to explain to you how to be a Sensate. Though, my own was not the best in that department. She preferred controlling over explaining.”

“That sounds a bit like my real mother,” Rose shrugs. “You don’t think she could also be my cluster’s mother, do you?”

Kanaya shakes her head. “No, she is not a Sensate. We would be able to tell. And what reason would she have to hide that information? But please, tell me more about the man you saw.”

“Well, he was short, and old, and he wore a green and white suit. I don’t think I ever saw his face, and I haven’t been able to contact him since.”

“That was Scratch,” Kanaya says suddenly, her eyes wide.

“Scratch? What do you mean?”

“An incredibly smug and irritating little old man?”

“Yes, that is how I would describe him,” Rose confirms.

“That is Scratch, he is in our mother’s cluster. I suppose he could have stood in for your mother, if…” she trails off, thinking to herself and frowning some more. Oh, or maybe she’s not just thinking to herself, she seems to be nodding along to something she’s listening to. Rose wonders if this is what visiting looks like from the outside.

“Are you visiting?” Rose asks. Kanaya’s eyes snap back into focus, and she looks back up at her.

“Yes, I do not have the most experience with Scratch, but my clustermate Vriska does. He is, in her words, a ‘manipulative asshole,’ and she advises you to stay away,” Kanaya says. Rose has heard Kanaya swear before, but it catches her off guard each time, because of how well-spoken and eloquent Kanaya tended to be. “And perhaps you should listen to her, he can be dangerous.”

“How so?” Rose lifts an eyebrow. He had seemed perfectly harmless, and that is even considering the fact that she had thought he’d broken into her house. Smug and irritating, sure, and entirely too confident, but she wouldn’t describe him as dangerous.

“Well, he tricked Vriska into nearly getting another of our cluster killed.” She casts a sharp look to her left. “Luckily, he survived.”

“I think I’ll try to get in contact again, regardless. I have questions that I doubt you can answer. No offense, of course. I would just like to know more about my own cluster,” Rose explains. Though Kanaya’s warning is off putting, Rose is still on a mission. She needs to find out all that she can, especially after the attack on Jake. Knowledge is power.

“Rose, I would advise against it, he nearly tore the cluster apart,” Kanaya says, reaching her hand across the table to touch Rose’s own. “We still haven’t recovered yet.”

“Thank you for the warning, I know to be careful now. I won’t do anything stupid. Promise.” Halfway through, Rose realizes Kanaya’s not listening to her. She’s frowning again, looking over to her left.

She gives a sigh, finally focusing her attention back to Rose. "I'll see what I can do to help, I suppose, if I can't talk you out of it. My cluster can act as a lookout for anything suspicious happening. Some of them are very well connected."

"Thank you," Rose says genuinely this time, relieved as she relaxes her shoulders. "That would be helpful. I'll try to do the same, we've already caught wind of strange things happening with Skaianet and the heiresses. One is in my cluster."

Kanaya raises an eyebrow. "Oh, yes, I've heard the same. We lost contact with Feferi a few months ago completely. Is Jane Crocker really in your cluster?"

"Feferi's in yours?" Rose asks, eyes wide. Kanaya nods, and Rose reevaluates. "You… lost contact completely. Hmm. That sounds- Troubling."

"Yes, after a series of events that would take too long to recount. Her mother had begun hunting us through Feferi. We never quite understood why."

"Oh, fuck. Like the attack on Jake a few days ago." Rose leans her head down and rubs her temple. "This might be worse than we thought."

"She's attacking you as well?" Kanaya looks a bit panicked now. "Rose, you should reconsider your plan to seek out Scratch. It might very well be worse than any of us thought."

"No," she shakes her head. "We need to know as much as we can, now especially. I've got to go, I need to start coordinating and organizing our group before it gets too late." Rose stands and pulls her messenger bag off of the chair, putting it over one shoulder.

"Rose," Kanaya says, stern.

"Kanaya," Rose answers, passive. "It's been lovely, I promise to keep you updated, and I only ask that you do the same."

She takes a cab home. It would be incredibly awkward to ask Kanaya to drive her back after that, after all. But she arrives home to an equally awkward state, because her mother is home from the lab earlier than expected.

“Rose, darling, how was your outing?” Her mother is in the living room, probably waiting for Rose to get home. She’s had a tendency to show herself wherever Rose might be at any moment. She has a wine glass in one hand, curled up on the couch with a magazine in the other.

“I’ve unlocked international conspiracies that have a chance of affecting my life, personally,” Rose says while she hangs up her black peacoat on the rack, slipping off her shoes. Those go neatly into the cubby on the floor with the rest of the shoes organized there.

“Oh?” Her reactions are minimal, controlled, while she attempts to decipher what Rose means by telling her this. “Is this something I need to be concerned about?”

“No, not until they attempt to kill me, or whatever it is they want,” Rose says nonchalantly, making her way up the stairs now. She’s disappeared into her room before her mother has a chance to respond to that. She allows herself a smug smile. More encounters with her has led to more opportunities to score points in the little games they play.

Now, to reinstate contact with this Scratch. He’s not in her cluster, so she can’t do the  _ reaching out _ process that she uses with the others. She thinks back to the first time, when he appeared before her. She had been sitting and meditating, er, well, more drinking than anything else. But perhaps the relaxed mindset had something to do with it. Keeping her psyche open, to reference some of her old wicca practices. Her third eye, even. Now she wonders if old witchcraft customs were actually related to Sensates before the scientific side was discovered, but she doesn’t have time to leap into that rabbit hole. She’ll tuck that away to debate with Jade later.

Regardless, she will light some candles and set them in a circle on the floor. They smell nice, and the scent relaxes her. If they help with the endeavor that’s just a bonus. Rose sits down on the floor, and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, and waits. There’s not much else to do.

Well, not much else besides talk to herself and pray that her mother’s ear isn’t pressed to her bedroom door. She suspects it has taken its place there multiple times lately. “Scratch,” she says aloud, her voice hesitant and soft. She clears her throat and tries again, like she’s talking to a real person, as she intends to. “Scratch. I know your name now, and I would like to speak with you again. The first time we spoke, you asked me for questions. I didn’t know what to ask. Now, I do. I would like some answers.”

Frustratingly, nothing happens.

####  Part 3: Dave

Yeah, he’s being watched now. The surveillance cameras previously used mostly for weird puppet snuff films have now spread from the living room and the kitchen to his own damn bedroom, and it’s a boundary that he never thought would be crossed. The day he actually  _ sees _ Bro in his one sanctuary on this earth is the day he has a real aneurysm and finally passes away into blissful oblivion. That’s too much. Even the knowledge that Bro must have been in here to set up the cameras at some point makes his skin prickle. But there’s definitely a little red light that blinks from the top of the closet door’s frame. He’s also got a band-aid over the webcam on his computer, for extra security, but that’s one he’s had for a while.

He wouldn’t be able to get away with removing or otherwise damaging them, either, they’d just go up again and he’d have to pay for the sabotage. So in the meantime, he’s just going to have to avoid doing anything suspicious, and maybe Bro will back off in like a week or so. That’s wishful thinking, and he knows it. Maybe panicking and nope-ing out of the situation when Bro first asked about it, back when he first met Dirk, was not the best move to make.

So for a lack of anything better to do about it he’s gonna… try… talking? To Bro? And see if that does anything at all, or if it’s even possible? It’s probably not. It’s probably not, and he’s an idiot for ever believing it might work. He shouldn’t even try- He’s already opened his bedroom door. He solidly puts a foot into the hallway… Oh, fuck, he’s doing this. Alright, here we go then.

There’s no traps in the hallway again, which again sets him on edge. But he sees why as soon as he enters the living room. He doesn’t have his sword, because he’s trying to give the impression that he wants to talk this time instead of fight, so hopefully the lack of a weapon will deter Bro from immediately launching into strife.

His strategy seems to be working. Bro himself is sitting perched on the back of the futon couch, legs drawn up under him like a large overgrown seagull. He sees Dave the second he walks in, probably heard him pacing around before he opened the door, too.

He speaks, “Gonna tell me what’s up now?”

Dave stops, thrown off. “Um. Yeah?”

“Good. Does it have anything to do with that?” Bro hooks a thumb behind him to the window. Dave frowns and carefully walks past Bro and the futon, over to the window by the TV. He sees what Bro means pretty quick, there’s a van parked across the street with a direct line of sight to the apartment. It looks stereotypically menacing, dark black with no logo on the side, blacked out windows and everything. He would have noticed it if it had been there for a while, so it’s been there maybe two days tops.

“They’re not after you? No puppet porn deals gone wrong?” Dave asks, turning back to Bro, who doesn’t react at all. That’s a no. So it might be related to the New Zealand drama, or the Japan drama. That’s too much drama, and Dave wants no part of it. No new Houston drama, thanks. He huffs. “Well. No big deal but I may have gotten mixed up in some shit.”

“Kid, if you’re doing drugs under my roof you can pack a bag right now,” Bro deadpans.

“No, not drugs,” Dave asserts, making ‘x’ motions with his hands to emphasize how not down he is with that idea. “Just. Like.” He looks around the room like that will help him figure out how to explain. He definitely should have planned better, because he has absolutely no idea where to go from here. Just getting Bro to listen was further than he thought he’d get. “You’re not going to believe me but it’s like… Superpowers…? Except not really, because Jade keeps telling us not to call them that, but that’s what they  _ are _ , and we’ve got, like, metahuman abilities and I don’t know how that doesn’t qualify as superpowers...” He trails off, realizing that he’s rambling, and that Bro’s not saying anything or doing anything besides just looking at him. “Uh. So I’ve got like other people living in my brain but they’re real and they just live far away, and I don’t really know how to prove it to you.”

“And that?” Bro asks after a second of quiet, gesturing to the window again, a complete non-reaction to all the batshit insane stuff Dave just explained.

“...That might be related to the fact that there’s a shady government organization thing supposedly hunting us down for unknown purposes.” He has to force his hand to stop fidgeting. So what, he’s just not going to get any response to all that? Does Bro believe him, just accepting all of that blindly? Does he think he’s lying, or insane, or bending the truth? Wouldn’t he have at least some questions? Why can’t he just  _ react _ at all?

Bro just nods. “I’ll take care of it.” He jumps down from the futon, Dave takes a quick step back, and then Bro speeds off in a blur. Dave takes a deep breath. That could have gone so much worse. Though he has no idea how it went yet, actually. He doesn’t know if it went good or not. Fuck.

He needs to do something else now. Probably should tell somebody about the mysterious stalker van, right? If they think Peixes is behind it, then he should ask Jane, but she’s brainwashed or whatever as of last time someone updated him. So Jade, then.

Dave focuses his attention and directs it at Jade, an invitation to visit. She’s the most receptive, so far, and usually he can feel her fluctuating thoughts and feelings across the link more clearly than the others.

“Hi Dave!” she greets, appearing next to him in the apartment. Dave glances around, wondering if Bro’s still there or still watching him, wondering if this is the easiest way to convince him he’s not crazy.

“Sup,” he jerks his head at her. “Come take a look at this.” He brings her over to the window, showing her the van.

“Oh! Suspicious!” Jade says, eyes wide as she puts her hand on the window sill and leans forward enough that her forehead bumps the glass.

“Think it might be the same people who went after Jake?”

“Hmm. Those guys had SUVs, I believe, but maybe!” Jade turns away from the window, and she looks around her room. In Japan, it’s dark, and she’s standing over a pile of blankets on the ground. Shit, was she asleep? It didn’t seem like it, but it’s gotta be really late there. He can also see Jane in a large bed in the same room, sound asleep. “There hasn’t really been anything shifty over here. I’m supposed to go back home later today, and if Mrs. Peixes was really focused on taking out Sensates she wouldn’t be cool with me leaving, right? Maybe the thing with Jake was because of something else!”

“Wait, you think they’re trying to take out Sensates?” Dave asks.

“...Well, what else would it be? It’s too much of a coincidence that this all happened right after our rebirth! Unless, of course, this is a regular occurrence for you guys,” she says, looking out of his window again. Dave follows her eyes, and sees a flash before one of the tires on the van bursts. “Oh!”

“That’d be Bro.” Dave looks down, and there’s a series of blurs and flashes before the other three tires burst in sequence. A man steps out of the van, comically shaking his fist at Bro as he blurs around out of sight. The man looks mad, but not necessarily super nefarious.

A knock sounds on the door. Dave and Jade both turn, and Jade looks to Dave with a frown. He raises one eyebrow, mind trying to figure out what the fuck that could be about. They never get visitors. Bro’s gotta be downstairs on the street still, he’s not  _ that _ fast. As far as Dave’s aware, he isn’t capable of teleporting yet, and besides, the door should be unlocked anyway. Whoever it is is knocking out of politeness, which might be a good sign, but just confuses Dave more.

He goes over to the door, treading lightly and his footsteps don’t make a sound. He leans over and looks through the peephole, seeing a guy with really messy dark hair and skin a light brown. He looks like he’s a couple years older than him, but in spite of that he’s definitely shorter than Dave. He’s standing with a scowl and his arms crossed while he taps his foot, anxiously looking up and down the hallway. Dave doesn’t really know what to make of that.

“Ask what he wants,” Jade advises.

“Who is it?” Dave calls, shooting Jade a look. He’s admittedly grateful for the support. If he’s murdered, he at least needs someone to witness his last moments, right? She’ll be able to tell the story of how he heroically fought off attackers before sacrificing himself for the greater good of their cluster, taking down their enemies with him. It’ll be great.

“Just let me in, it’s important!” The guy yells back, impatient and twice as loud as Dave. He looks to Jade again, who shrugs dramatically.

“I’m gonna grab a sword,” Dave mutters to Jade, quiet enough the visitor can’t hear him. He silently rushes back into his room, grabbing his katana while he assesses all the factors of the situation. Hostiles downstairs with Bro, possible hostiles at his door. Jade’s there too.

When he goes back to the living room the door is swinging open already, and the boy enters the apartment, closing it behind him. Dave points the sword at him. “Dude, what the fuck,” he says.

He holds up his hands in surprise, looking startled. “Is that a fucking sword? What the fuck right back!”

“Yeah it’s a sword, it’s dope as shit,” Dave says, taking a couple steps closer. “Haven’t you ever heard of breaking and entering? It’s illegal.”

“Obviously, listen. I’m here to warn you, as fucking stupid as that sounds. There’s not a lot of time.” He’s exasperated, crossing his arms again with a huff. “ _ Obviously _ .”

“I already know about the creepy van dude. Just tell me who you are and what you want.”

“Stop calling me dude!” He snaps. “It’s an organized crime gang thing, we don’t have time to get into that right now! Important thing is, they started hunting younger Sensates, and it’s fucked up. So you’ve either got to get out of here or convince them to back the fuck off like the other one did.”

“Oh, man, is this like a ‘come with me if you want to live’ situation? In  _ my  _ real life?” Dave asks. He gets a glower in response. “By other one do you mean Jake and by Sensate do you mean-”

“Dave!” Jade says, and he looks over at her before he can think better of it. “Can you stop messing around?! This is important!”

“Yes! I don’t know what your clustermate is saying, but I agree with them. Get your head out of your ass and get a move on!” He takes a couple steps closer to Dave, and he levels the sword at him again. “And put that thing down, you look like a moron.”

“Nah. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s not a whole lot of trust happening around here yet. Are you with the guys down there?” he asks. The boy hesitates for a just split second, but that’s enough of an answer. “You said they’re hunting Sensates? So you know that  _ I’m _ a Sensate? Why the fuck would I trust you?”

“I’m a Sensate  _ too _ . They don’t know, nobody does, I’m just trying to look out for my own fucking species. Is that so hard to believe?”

Dave looks to Jade, again. She bites her lip. “I think you should trust him. For now. And in the meantime, I’m gonna go ask some questions! I’ll be back!” She gives him a wave, and pops out of sight.

He heaves his shoulders once in resignation and lowers the sword, but doesn’t let his guard down. “Fine. Then what’s your plan, wise guy?”

“You’re gonna need to get somewhere safer. Do you live alone?” He asks, frowning as he looks around the apartment. It’s a mess of puppets and assorted weaponry, so it might look like he lives without any parental guidance, and that’s because he absolutely does.

“My bro’s taking out the stalker van as we speak,” Dave says, gesturing with his thumb to the window again. “Thanks for the heads up and all, but I think we’ve got it covered.”

“You-” he rushes over to the window, leaning towards the glass. He turns back and takes a deep breath, looking just as angry as when he came in. “Okay. Your  _ brother _ might have just pissed them off more, great job, fuckwit.”

“Uncalled for,” Dave protests.

“Whatever. We should just get out of here before they start shooting or something. They might already be in the building, so-” He lunges forward and grabs Dave’s arm, pulling him in the direction of the door.

“Dude!” Dave jerks out of his grip, affronted and shocked. “No touching. Not cool. I need to-”

“Oh my  _ god _ whatever it is we don’t have time for it! Let’s  _ go _ !” He doesn’t grab at him again, but he just gives Dave a pointed look while he goes back to the front door. Dave follows him with minimal grumbling, sword still in hand, and grabs keys off the counter before leaving the apartment.

####  Part 4: Jade

Jade leaves Dave with his mysterious new visitor, and it might be four AM in Japan but she is willing and prepared to wake people up to get some answers. If she had to wake up to help Dave, then so does Feferi! Jane can sleep for now. She probably needs it, she seems really stressed all the time! Plus Jade’s a little wary of her now. Feferi, too, but honestly if Jane is compromised she’s much more of a threat to their cluster, though the thought makes her really sad. But she can talk to Feferi. Especially since she’s leaving today, it might be her last chance.

Jade sends a cautious glance to Jane, who’s sleeping in her bed, and tiptoes out of the room. Luckily, she hadn’t woken up while Jade was talking to Dave. She was trying to be quiet, but she’s also been told that she doesn’t have the best volume control in the world. But Jane was asleep! So she must be getting better!

She crosses down the hallway and knocks softly on Feferi’s door, not wanting to wake anyone else up. Mrs. Peixes has the master bedroom on the other side of the floor, but Jade worries that she doesn’t sleep. And she doesn’t want her to know Jade’s sneaking around, so she’s gonna be as quiet as she can be.

Feferi carefully opens the door a couple moments later, just when Jade had been getting impatient. Feferi’s hair is up, all of her braids twisted up on top of her head, and she rubs her eyes while she stares blankly at Jade. She’s not wearing any of the gold jewelry that usually covers any available surface, and that includes her tiara. Jade swallows, caught off guard.

“Um, Feferi, can I talk to you?” she asks quietly. Feferi blinks at her, and nods, holding open the door a little wider and gesturing her to come in. She shuts the door behind Jade, and then sits down on her bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“Well,” Jade starts, sitting carefully down next to her. “I was sort of wondering about your tiaratop. What do you use it for?”

Feferi’s eyes drift to where it sits on her nightstand. “Oh, I should be wearing that,” she says, leaning over. Jade catches her shoulder and pulls her back.

“No, you don’t need it right now,” she says. “Or, I’d rather you didn’t.” Feferi gives her a sleepy, confused look. “Um, does your mom use it to, um, talk to you?”

“Sure, that’s what it’s for,” she shrugs. Then she blinks a couple of times, slowly waking up. “But between you and me, I think it’s for a lot more than that!”

“Oh?” Jade says, leaning towards her and giving her full attention.

“Yeah,” she says, then slumps her shoulders. “I can’t communicate with my cluster anymore.” And whatever Jade was expecting, it wasn’t that!

“What? Why not?” she asks in shock. “I didn’t know that was possible!”

“Me neither! I… think my mom did it. It’s funny, my head feels really clear right now,” Feferi says, still frowning. She casts a nervous glance back at the tiara. “Um, why are we talking about this right now?”

“Oh! Right!” Jade says, remembering Dave. “One of my cluster got attacked a few days ago! They’re saying that your mom might have had something to do with it, and now another one in my cluster is being stalked by the same people. So I was wondering if you knew anything?”

“Hmm. Um. I think the same thing happened with my cluster?” Feferi winces and puts a hand to the side of her head. “Yeah, I remember something about people going missing… and then I tried to run away…” Her frown deepens, then her eyes widen with a flash of anxiety. “Wait, you might be in danger!  _ Jane _ might be in danger!”

“Jane,” Jade remembers. “Oh no.” She bites her lip and tries to come up with a way to fix this. There aren’t any easy solutions, not if Mrs. Peixes has some kind of secret task force or whatever they are…

“What happened to your clustermates?” Feferi asks after a moment. She looks a little guilty, like she had something to do with it, guilt Jade is sure is misplaced.

“Jake’s fine, he got away. And I think Dave’s alright? A short and angry kid showed up and said he wanted to help, so Dave’s with him…” Jade wonders if she should probably check in on that!

“With who?” Feferi asks, jerking her head up and looking directly at Jade. “Who’s Dave with?”

“Short and angry guy? Latino, maybe, or Filipino? Bit of both? Um, probably a little older than us. Than Dave and I, I mean,” Jade says, trying to remember details. “Maybe your age.”

Feferi grabs Jade’s hands, looking excited. “I think that was Karkat! He’s Filipino on his mom’s side I think. But he’s in my cluster, I haven’t talked to him in  _ forever _ ! I’m glad he’s okay! Could you pass on a hello for me, pretty please?”

“Oh! Yeah!” Jade nods, and stands up. “Um, thank you for the honesty! I’ll let you sleep now, so I can deal with this…”

“Okay! Any time!” Feferi says, still smiling. “And let me know if you find more of my cluster! I’d love to see them again!”

“Of course!” Jade agrees, and gives a little wave as she walks out. She goes back into Jane’s room, tiptoeing past her, and slips out the sliding glass door onto the balcony. She sits in one of the reclined lawn chairs, looking at the sun barely beginning to lighten the sky, and closes her eyes.

She opens them in Houston, and sees Dave flinging around with his sword, dodging actual gunfire. Alarmed, she takes another moment to let her eyes flicker around, taking in the scene. Dave and his brother are both fighting with swords, against three men with guns that are kind of useless in these close quarters. But one of the men also has a knife that he wields with obviously trained skill, one is swinging a sniper rifle at them as if it’s a sword, and the third is very short but is also holding a bat. She doesn’t see Karkat.

They’re fighting in an alleyway, and Jade thinks she can place it as the one behind the apartment building. She’s definitely missing some context here! But if she were to guess, she’d say that Dave and Karkat tried to escape, but then Dave, at least, got caught up in fighting down here. Okay, it’s not that complicated, as it turns out.

“Dave! I got info!” she shouts. Apparently these guys aren’t that hard to fight, because Dave can spare her a glance and a thumbs up without missing a beat. Dave’s brother knocks the knife out of the angry man’s hand, and then he pulls out another knife with a scowl. There’s a littering of knives on the ground already, and this dude has a problem.

Lacking a way to actually help, Jade pokes her head out from the wall and looks down the street, to do some more reconnaissance. She can see the van parked on the street, and now there’s a really big guy kneeling down next to the tires, attaching a new one with two slashed open tires piled on the ground next to him. She can see him mouthing swear words under his breath, grumbling while he goes about readying the getaway vehicle.

“Jake!” she calls. She waits a second, tapping her foot and looking over her shoulder at the continuing fight, and then pops into Jake’s room. “Jake!” she repeats. He’s in bed, which she supposes makes sense, but everyone’s getting woken up today! Jade shakes his shoulder, and slowly he starts to grumble and stir.

“...Jade…?” he asks, rubbing his hand down his face. He starts to sit up. “Blimey, it’s early, what’s going on?”

“You don’t have to get up!” Jade pushes his shoulder and lays him back down. “Just, are these the guys that attacked you?” She keeps her voice low, because she hopes he can just check and then get back to sleep. She’s not a  _ total _ asshole! She can recognize that some people actually enjoy sleeping past six in the morning! She can’t understand it, but she can recognize it!

She’s still peering around the corner in Houston, and when Jake appears next to her Dave shoots her an exasperated look. Well, she can’t really see his expressions all that clearly, but that’s definitely the vibe she gets from him, and he maybe grits his teeth a bit.

“Er… let’s see,” Jake says, frowning, looking between the big guy fixing the car and the other three fighting with Dave and his brother. Dave keeps knocking away the short one when he tries to swipe at Dave with his bat, while he also strifes with the angry one with the infinite amount of knives. His brother fights the tall one with the rifle using a sword and a puppet somehow? It keeps trying to strangle the tall guy with its weird gangly puppet arms, and Jade really hates it on sight! Dave’s brother is weird, and she doesn’t think she likes him one bit!

“Jake?” she prods.

He starts to nod. “Yes, well, it sure does look to be the case! A bit hard to recognize them from the security tapes, but they are quite distinctly shaped!”

“Okay! Thanks, you can go back to sleep!” She starts pushing him back into his room.

“Well, hold on, that all looks rather interesting! What’s Dave up to?” he resists, gesturing back over to Dave’s fight.

“Um,” Jade says, “I don’t really know! I missed a bit of context. But I should probably be looking for Karkat! Let me know if you see a short Latino and-or Filipino dude walking around here!”

“On top of it!” Jake nods, determined, and splits off in another direction. He has the posture of an adventurer, sure, but he’s still in his grandpa pajamas. Almost all of his legs are exposed and his feet are bare, which apparently aren’t burning on the hot cement. Which is another good thing to know! Like, she can  _ tell  _ that it’s hot, she’s aware of the humid Texas air, but at the same time, she’s taking none of the effects!

Jade starts snooping around while Dave hits the short one over the head with the handle of his katana. The tall one starts shooting again, but Dave’s brother redirects the gun to fire straight up into the air with his own sword, and they seem to be holding their own okay. But she can tell that Dave, at least, is getting tired. Jade worries her lip as she carefully circles outside of the combat zone, looking to where Jake went. He’s looking around the dumpsters next to the wall of the apartment building, and next to those she can see a door that doesn’t look like it opens from this side. It’s marked with an exit sign, so maybe it’s where they all came out of?

As she peers at it, she sees a flash of dark hair pop into the little window and then duck back down again. Oh, is Karkat hiding? She goes over closer and uses her height to look down through the window, where she can see Karkat standing with his back to the door, keeping tabs on the situation by leaning over and looking out every couple minutes or so. He looks anxious, fidgeting and clenching his jaw, grumbling to himself words that Jade can’t hear.

“Jake! Found him!” she calls. Jake lets out a whoop, and comes back over to see. Jake sees Karkat poke his head up again, and then the door slowly opens and Karkat slips out. She turns and sees that none of the attackers are looking this direction. Dave spares him a glance, but then goes back to ducking and dodging bats and knives. He’s getting slower. Karkat waits behind the dumpster, moving so that he’s still out of sight, and then picks up a rock on the ground and throws it. It pegs the tall one with a gun directly on the head, and he turns around in a rage, which allows Dave’s brother to land a solid hit.

“Dammit!” the tall guy yells, turning back to Dave’s brother and opening fire again, but none of the bullets strike a target. The gun starts to click, and Jade knows that it’s out of ammo. She could identify that noise in her sleep! “Fine! You win this time, assholes.” His two compatriots pause their fighting, and back away from Dave, who’s breathing harder. His brother looks perfectly fine.

“Is Hearts finished with the car?” the angry knife one asks. Jade thinks that maybe Hearts is the name, or codename, rather, of the big one who was fixing the tires.

“He better be,” the tall one grumbles. The shortest one with the bat doesn’t say anything, but looks much more worried than menacing. “We’ll be back for you though, don’t worry,” he says to Dave with a grimace before he turns and walks away, resting the gun on his shoulder. Dave glances to his brother, who just watches them go with a blank face, so Dave does the same.

Once the three have left the alleyway, Dave’s brother gives him a single look and then pulls out some keys and unlocks the exit door Karkat had been hiding in. He also passes Karkat, who’s standing up now looking unsure, but he doesn’t pay him any mind.

Dave follows his brother, and gestures for Karkat to come with him. Karkat follows them inside in silence. Jade follows, too, but Jake’s disappeared. She gently tugs on their connection, mentally, and finds that he’s asleep again. Which is probably a good thing!

It’s a long trek up the stairs back to their apartment. Once Karkat and Dave are inside, Jade tagging along, his brother closes the door behind them.

“Explain,” he says, crossing his arms at Karkat, who kind of shrinks in on himself.

“It’s not his fault,” Dave argues, stepping a little closer defensively. Jade stands next to Dave too, in solidarity, even though she’s invisible.

“You’re right, it’s your fault.” His brother takes a step towards them, and Dave tenses his grip on his sword. Jade and Karkat both notice this, and Jade puts a hand on Dave’s shoulder in support. He twitches just a bit at the action, but otherwise doesn’t react. “You got yourself into a mess, and led those criminals to our door.”

“He didn’t fucking  _ ask _ for that!” Karkat defends, his hands curling into fists, and that’s not going to diffuse the situation!

“And you let strangers into the apartment. Potential dangers.” He’s still only addressing Dave. “Might have to strife this one out, little man.” He gives Dave a half second to get into a defensive position before he lunges at him, and no!

Jade grabs a fistful of Dave’s shirt and yanks him to the right, out of range, while Karkat steps forward and holds out a hand. Dave’s brother stops, looking at Karkat in a calculating sort of way.

“No! No, what the fuck! I thought my home life was bad, but this is fucked! You can’t just attack people who didn’t do anything wrong!” Karkat rants, his voice steadily growing louder until he’s shouting. “He’s your little brother for fuck’s sake!”

“Hey, you don’t-” Dave starts, but Jade claps a hand over his mouth.

“Um, yeah, we do!” she says, her grip still tight on his sleeve. “He’s right, this isn’t okay!”

Dave’s brother moves out of a fighting stance, relaxing but clearly still ready to fight at a moment’s notice. He gives Karkat a long look, who meets it with defiance, and then turns and hangs up the sword on the wall. He says, “I want you out of my house.”

“Good, I was just leaving,” Karkat glares, and glances at Dave. “You can still come if you want,” he says to him.

Jade takes her hand off his mouth, and Dave says, “You should probably just go.”

Karkat’s glower doesn’t waver, but he concedes with a final glare in Bro’s direction. “Fine. But you know how to reach me.” He slams the door on his way out. Dave looks at his brother for some direction, but when all he gets is a cold stare, he slips off back to his room.

Jade sticks her tongue out at Bro, flipping him off, and then follows Dave again. “So Dave!” she says as soon as they’re in his room. He collapses dramatically face down on his bed.

“Yeah?” he asks, voice muffled by his bright red comforter.

“We’re gonna have to do something about that!”

####  Part 5: Jane

Jane’s been having an excellent week. Her family bonds have strengthened, and she feels closer to her step mother and sister than ever. She hasn’t seen much of her father, but she knows that he goes to important board meetings that she isn’t yet equipped to participate in. She does like Jade, as well, she’s very pleasant company. Her grandfather is very kind too, and he can hold his own against Meenah, so she respects that.

She sits at a table with Jade’s grandfather and Meenah at the moment. She sits next to Feferi, and Jade is still asleep upstairs. Jane had awoken when Jade came back into the room from her business outside on the balcony, and had then found Jade tinkering with her tiaratop. She had reprimanded her, put the accessory someplace safe, and bid Jade to go back to sleep. It was quite betraying that someone of her own cluster would mess with her things like that, especially something that important.

Jade is still asleep, she can feel. That is probably better, as she would have no business in a meeting such as this, no matter how connected to the participants or the subject matter she is. They’ve just had an early breakfast, and the dining ware has all been cleared away.

“The upgrades appear to be working quite well!” Harley says, pointing with his bushy eyebrows in the direction of Feferi and Jane. “Is it really working the way you wanted it to?”

“Yeah, for sure. Wish my other plans would go this well all the time, ugh,” Meenah rolls her eyes and huffs. “Need ta keep you around all the time. Get a lot more shit done that way.”

Harley chortles. “I don’t doubt it, but alas, I have business elsewhere to attend to.”

“Oh, still in the weapons business, huh?” Meenah perches her chin on top of one hand.

“Never stopped! As long as people are willing to buy, I’ll make whatever they ask.”

“See girls! This is the kind of dedication to craft that I admire!” She redirects her attention to Jane and Feferi, expecting a response.

“Of course,” Jane nods.

“That’s business!” Feferi agrees.

“Good,” Meenah smiles widely. “Proud of you girls. Learning from the best!” She turns back to Harley. “Now about the kid. I think she would be a lot more useful to me if she stayed here, and in exchange, I could teach her more of her abilities as a Sensate.”

At the word ‘Sensate’ Harley’s eyes twinkle. “But of course! She should know how to use her abilities, and who better to learn from? But, I do enjoy her company, she’s a bright girl, and doubt she would want to stay behind. Perhaps we could set up some kind of correspondence, because I really don’t think-”

“Nah, my man, trust me, she’ll be better off here. Haven’t you heard about all that shady business going on in the larger Sensate community? She’s probably talked to you about it, right? Jane here ’s told me it’s happened to a couple in her cluster already.”

Jane has told her nothing of the sort, unless Meenah was eavesdropping on one of her conversations with Feferi and Jade, but the sharp look Meenah sends her tells her not to argue. She’s telling the truth, after all.

Henry frowns, stroking his mustache and humming to himself. “I didn’t realize it was getting this dangerous… But I should consult her first, before we make any decisions.”

“Oh, Henry, that’s not necessary. Your flight leaves soon! Let her get some sleep, she’s had a long week. I promise she’ll be alright here with us. Right?”

“Of course! I love Jade!” Feferi agrees. Jane nods as well. She does like Jade. And Jade really would probably be safer here than anywhere else. Anywhere else, Meenah would still be hunting her down, so if she’s here, that part’s already over.

Harley grumbles some more and then sighs. “I… suppose.”

“Great!” Meenah says, clapping her hands together. “Then we’ve gotta get you on a plane, buddy boy!” She stands up abruptly, and with the movement her chair scrapes the tile behind her. Harley looks startled, but moves to stand up as well. Jane slips out of her chair gracefully, while Feferi uses some of the same enthusiasm as her mother.

Henry Harley leaves without a goodbye to Jade, who still sleeps. Jane is fairly impressed, she’s learned that Jade can fall into a deep sleep almost on command, at any time of the day.

Now, after Harley has left, she goes back to her room. She left the door open just a little bit, so through the crack she sees Jade is awake, and is having a hushed conversation with Rose, both of them sitting cross legged on the floor in Jade’s pile of blankets. (Jane  _ had _ offered her a guest room, but Jade had insisted on having a “sleepover.” She’s a really good hostess, promise.) Jane waits a moment before making her presence known, just to see what they are discussing.

“No, I’m worried as well, and I do think we need to do something,” Rose is saying, a frown on her face. “I can ask Kanaya for more information, and see what we can do, but from New York there isn’t much I can do, unfortunately.”

Jade sighs. “Yeah, I thought that would be the case… You say she can’t reach Feferi?” Rose shakes her head. “Ugh. Then maybe she should talk to Karkat. Maybe he has some ideas to help Dave? He seemed like he’d be willing to help!”

Finally Jane pushes open the door and reveals herself. “Are you talking about Dave?” she asks.

Jade jumps, her hair flying around her head as she quickly turns to see Jane. “Jane! Yeah! We want to help him somehow, because even  _ before _ the attempted kidnapping or whatever we didn’t like his brother. But now everything’s worse!”

“Oh, is that what was happening last night?” Jane asks, carefully folding her legs under herself and sitting down with them.

“Yes,” Rose says. “There was an incident.” She looks at Jane like she’s calculating, which seems to be Rose’s default, and then continues, “We’ve now met two other members of Feferi’s cluster. I have met Kanaya, and now Dave has met Karkat. Have you heard of them?”

Ask where they are.

“Feferi may have mentioned something. Where are they now, what happened to them?” Jane asks, offhandedly, not paying close attention to the conversation any more. Sensate talk tends to go over her head sometimes, on account of her ignoring any mention of it for several years now.

Rose raises an eyebrow, and Jade bites her lip. She tends to do that a lot, Jane’s noticed. A quirk of anxiety most likely. She wonders if Jade is always this nervous, or if it’s a recent development. “We aren’t sure what happened, actually,” Rose says. “I would love to see what Feferi has to say on the matter.”

“But we were worried about Dave!” Jade interjects.

“He could come here, he would be safe,” Jane says. That’s why Jade is here. That’s why Feferi is here. As times get more dangerous, Sensates need to stick closer together, so her step mother says.

“That’s a bit… extreme,” Rose says gently. “We won’t dismiss it, but that should be a worse case scenario.” Jane knows enough of business deals to take that as a hard ‘no.’

“Well, then, what have you proposed?” Jane asks diplomatically.

“We were going to try and reach out to other Sensates. Karkat and Kanaya are willing to lend a hand, but we’re not sure if there’s much to do from our end. And I don’t trust Karkat nearly enough to rely solely on him for something this important,” Rose explains.

“And it’s hard to help someone who doesn’t really want to be helped!” Jade adds. “Dave can be pretty stubborn, apparently, and I don’t know if he’s entirely figured out how shitty his brother is!”

“Family can be complicated,” Jane shrugs. “After all, we all have  _ something _ , don’t we? For Dave, this might be normal.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s  _ good _ !” Jade argues.

“I’ll talk to Dave more about it,” Rose concedes, putting a hand on Jade’s shoulder and making her relax. “And I can let you know if we figure out something more solid.” She gives each of them a nod and then disappears.

Jade grumbles to herself, the same mutterings that her grandfather did when he didn’t like something. It’s an obvious family resemblance, and it reminds Jane to break the news. “Jade. Your grandfather, and my step mother, decided it would be best if you stayed here.”

“Huh?” Jade asks, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Your grandfather already left. We’re going to help you with Sensate training here, since there’s three more of us,” she explains.

“Oh. Oh, boy,” Jade’s eyes widen and she runs a hand through her hair. “Okay, um… Okay. This was your step-mom’s idea?”

“Yes.”

“And Grandpa just went along with it?” she frowns.

“Yep.”

She sighs again, “Oh boy.” Jade stands up, and Jane looks up at her calmly. “Well, at least I have more time to talk to Feferi now… We wanted to know what happened with her cluster.”

“We can do that,” Jane nods, standing as well. “I’ve been curious too.”

Feferi’s more than happy to help. Jane’s barely sent the thought through her tiaratop and Feferi makes a grand entrance into the room, a grin on her face. “What did you wanna know?” she asks, plopping onto the bed.

Jane and Jade readjust themselves onto the bed. Jade starts, “I wanted to know what happened with your cluster! You said that some of them had started going missing, when I asked you last night?”

“Anything helps, since the same thing might be happening with ours,” Jane adds. Jade glances at her with a touch of confusion, which is silly, because of course they’re on the same side. “We’ve got to know what’s going on to defend ourselves.”

“Of course! Though, I don’t know if I said people went  _ missing _ … I know that when we were all freaking out some of us started taking blockers. A lot of us still are! We don’t really keep in touch anymore,” Feferi explains.

“Blockers?” Jane asks.

“Pills that turn off your powers, basically,” Jade supplies, looking worried.

“Yeah! So some people were being attacked, like your cluster, and I guess we went into hiding. Um...” Feferi taps a finger on her cheek, looking up while she thinks. She gasps like she’s thought of something, opens her mouth, and then closes it again, shaking her head. She does this a couple of times.

“Can you not… remember?” Jade asks hesitantly.

“No, no, it’s all there! I just can’t think of anything that’s relevant!” Feferi reassures her.

Jane readjusts her skirt, settling into her sitting position. They could be there for a while. “That’s fine, just start from the beginning.”

“The beginning! Okay, well… So we had our rebirth a couple years before my mom married your dad,” Feferi gestures to Jane, who struggles to not interrupt. She was right, this wasn’t relevant. But if Jane can be quiet and let her speak, they might be able to get somewhere. Eventually. “There was some relationship drama I think, I was dating two people at once? Yeah, it was Sollux and Aradia. It didn’t work out for some reason, I think they were the first few to start taking blockers. Or they went missing, there’s no way to say for sure!” she shrugs.

“Are you sure there’s no way to tell?” Jade asks.

“I certainly can’t contact either of them anymore!” Feferi giggles. “So I don’t know, something happened with them. Um… next… I think that’s when Gamzee went crazy. Karkat talked him down, isn’t he the one that’s with Dave now?” she asks, and Jade nods. “Yeah! He’s good for mediating, I guess. Anyways, then Gamzee disappeared. He’d been taking blockers  _ before _ that, though. He just came back long enough to do… Something? To Equius and Nepeta. I don’t know what happened there! I think they’re okay, but… Yeah. I haven’t talked to anybody in a while.”

“Why not?” Jade asks.

“Like I said, I think they’re all on blockers because they’re scared now! Maybe that’s just what you guys need to do, so that nobody can find you anymore,” Feferi shrugs.

Jane clears her throat, and both girls look to her. “I’m waiting for you to explain why you ran away. It has to be more complicated than a fit of teenage rebellion, don’t you think?”

“Oh…” Feferi trails off, her eyes going unfocused for a moment. “Yeah… Honestly, that was most of it! I did that thing most teens do, and hated my mom for no good reason at all. Eventually my boyfriend, Eridan, talked me into going back, because I was just being stupid.” She looks at Jade. “You know, Karkat’s the one who convinced me to leave in the first place! Maybe you should keep an eye on him and Dave and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid like run away from home.”

Jade shifts, obviously uncomfortable. “Sure.”

“It wasn’t Sensate related at all?” Jane asks, still not buying it. There’s a part of her that just wants to let it go and accept what Feferi says completely, but there’s still a bit of detective in her that’s been trying to crack this case for months now.

Feferi thinks again for a moment, conflicted. “I don’t think so! That might have been stressing me out and made me more emotionally volatile, but not really!”

“Enlightening,” Jane says.

“Okay there’s still one more thing that’s bothering me!” Jade cuts in. “Why would your cluster be taking blockers anyways!? The only reason to do that was if someone in the group was compromised. Or working against the rest of the group. Right?”

“Maybe!” Feferi shrugs. “A lot of them were just assholes, though. Especially Vriska. She tried to kill Aradia once! I don’t know why, and it didn’t work… I think… And Gamzee, too, he was crazy. I think Equius was just really overprotective and didn’t like being a Sensate at all, and he would have convinced Nepeta to do it too. I think it was better for a lot of us to cut off contact!”

Jane’s trying to catalogue all the names that Feferi says, but she can’t really make any of them stick in her mind. But with her mind, and the tiaratop’s help, she opens up a little mental memo note, and starts putting the names she remembers in. Nepeta, Equius, Gamzee, Aradia, Vriska, Karkat, Eridan… Well. She knows that’s not all of them. She can ask again later, though.

Jade hums to herself, frowning. “Mmm… Okay, well, thanks Feferi! I’ll pass on what I can, and maybe we can come up with some kind of plan! Right, um, Jane?”

“Right,” Jane nods. “Thank you, Feferi.”

“No problem!” Feferi smiles, standing from the bed. “Jade, I’m really excited that you’re staying for longer! I feel like I haven’t gotten to know you yet! And I know she’s stiff sometimes but I think Jane’s excited too!”

“Yeah,” Jade says, smiling but not with her usual enthusiasm. “It’ll be fun.”

#### 

####  Part 6: Jake

In the wake of the attack on the estate, and the subsequent attack on Dave’s home, Jake has a lot of added security around him at all times, which he’s finding to be quite suffocating! It’s very hard to get anything done while being watched, so he’s not getting as much work done, and furthermore he can’t go out and explore the preserve as he would like to. It’s hard to even talk to his own cluster under the constant scrutiny.

The face of Jake English is a relaxed and ready for adventure one, not at all plagued by anxiety. He is supposed to be fearless and courageous, which mean the same thing, and he’s supposed to do it all with a smile.

His photographer, a woman named Stella Iverson, is frowning at him. She lowers the camera and gestures to a girl next to her holding a makeup brush. “Could you get under his eyes?” she asks. The girl quickly nods and rushes over to Jake, and he lets her brush some powder on his face. “Jake. You need to get a solid eight hours of sleep every night to keep yourself at your best.”

He nods. “I know! I’m terribly sorry, I’ve just had a lot on my mind recently!” he apologizes. He does not add the fact that he gets woken up fairly regularly by the antics of his cluster. None of them will have a regular sleep schedule by the end of this.

The touch-up girl backs away and Jake smiles again for Stella, posing with one leg up on a fake rock that does look convincingly real, especially in post. He’s got his hands fisted on his hips, and he looks to the upper left distance, away from the camera. The ground and the wall behind him are a bright green, he thinks that this week they are putting him on the rocky shores of New Zealand, something to appeal to the local crowd. There’s a fan in front of him simulating a gentle breeze through his hair and clothes.

“This must be a stressful time for you,” Stella comments. At every door in the room there’s a security guard posted keeping a careful eye on all of them.

“It’s alright!” Jake says, smiling. It’s not. It  _ is  _ stressful and he does  _ not _ need this target on his back from business competitors that disagree with his psychic powers. Or whyever they felt the need to stage a home invasion.

She snaps a few more photos with his head turned different ways, and then pauses. “Alright, let’s take a quick break, then we can move on to filming. Back in ten!” The makeup girl, the wardrobe consultants, the backup photographers, the set workers, the contractors, a couple security members, and Serenity all break apart and go to their own desks and areas to grab a snack or some water, or make phone calls, or text, email, whatever they need to do. Jake drifts over to Serenity, and sits down in his chair in front of a large mirror. Sometimes he pretends he’s Marilyn Monroe, or someone of her caliber. He feels a bit too tired to do that today.

“Oh, wow. Is this where it all happens?” This time, it’s Jane paying him a visit. The procedure has become routine, people appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye, but each time Jake can still feel the excitement at the reminder that he has  _ superpowers _ . It’s still really neat!

“Hello Jane!” he greets. “This is where  _ it _ may all happen indeed, depending on what you mean by that!” She’s looking around the room with apparent curiosity, wide-eyed and somehow looking a touch younger than how he’s seen her before. It’s a nice look on her!

“All the posters and commercials! I’ve got a few up in my room at home,” she says, looking not at all ashamed. Not that she should be! But Jake has met a few fans before.

“Posters for the wildlife preserve?” Jake asks, and she nods. “Well! Perhaps you can answer some questions I have, in that case! I can’t imagine that all these people care so much about the preserve, or else we would get lots more donations. So what makes our merchandise sell so well?”

Jane laughs, which he wasn’t quite expecting, and it only confuses him more. “Jake, look at this.” She takes him to her room, and points to a poster of himself hanging on her wall. It’s one of the best-selling ones, showing him hanging off a tree with one hand facing away from the camera, looking off into the forest below him. They had taken that promotional series in South America, so the tips of old ruins could be seen poking out of the trees. It’s entirely one of his favorites, as it paid some homage to Indiana Jones, all his idea of course. The logo for English Wildlife Preserves was printed at the top.

“That is my favorite, but I fail to see your point.”

Jane pauses and sizes him up for a moment. “Jake, I’m just going to be honest with you. You’re hot. You’re eye candy. Teenage girls are obsessed with you. You’re almost  _ boyband _ status, Jake.”

“...What? Really?” he frowns, turning over in his head all the other promotional products he’s made. He’s given autographs before, and while he didn’t think much of it at the time, he does suppose the majority of his fans are in fact teenage girls. He had been aware that that was somewhat out of the ordinary for something like his company, but he always chalked that up to a good marketing strategy. He didn’t realize it was mostly because of… him.

“Jake?” Jane asks, lightly concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, yes! I just hadn’t realized,” he explains. “But, um, Jane, just how bad is it? I mean, you’re a company representative as well, does this sort of thing happen with you?”

“I’ve taken measures to ensure that it doesn’t, actually,” Jane says. She pulls out her phone and looks herself up, and shows Jake her most recent promotional advertisement. It shows her and Feferi sitting on fancy, throne-like chairs side by side, dressed only in shades of red and white. Feferi looks as she usually does, with a bright smile, but Jane’s bright blue eyes look sharp and uninviting, and her face is blank, calculating. “It may invite criticism from the media, sometimes, but I’m generally seen as too intimidating to garner that sort of attention,” she smiles.

“Oh! I see what you mean,” Jake says. He looks back at his own poster. Have his shorts always been so small? He’s fairly certain that he’s always picked his own wardrobe, but he supposes he did let the photographers and consultants direct him. South America was definitely his own idea, that he’s sure of. Though, does he really look like Indiana Jones, or more like… Marion Ravenwood?

Stella’s voice carries over to him. “Break’s up!” she calls. Jake’s pulled back into his own present. He takes a swig of water and stands up.

“You can stay, if you want,” he says, still frowning.

“I’d love to, I really would, but I have business of my own to take care of.” He nods to her and she gives a little wave before disappearing. If not for his new existential crisis, he’d say that was probably the nicest interaction with Jane that he’s ever had. She seemed much more… personable, than normal. She was wearing the tiaratop, he noticed, but perhaps she wasn’t quite as under her step-mother’s sway for whatever reason. Or perhaps Mrs. Peixes hadn’t deemed this worthy of her attention. Regardless of the causes, talking to Jane felt like talking to an actual sixteen-year-old, for once, rather than an adult-like figure heading an empire. It was nice.

But back to business. The makeup girl meets him as he goes back over to the set, taking his chin in her hand and examining his face, and brushing a few products over his cheeks. This is routine, Jake has done this countless times, but this is the first time since he started when he actually feels uncomfortable. The wardrobe consultant comes over when she’s done, and pokes and pulls at Jake’s clothes to ensure that they fall right.

The set has been changed around a bit, but it’s still mostly greenscreen. “You know your lines?” Stella asks. Jake nods. They’ve got to release a statement about the invasion of the preserve, since it somehow got leaked to the press. He had looked over the lines earlier, they weren’t difficult to memorize.

But now that he’s got so much else on his mind… He takes his place with Serenity at one shoulder and one of the security guards at the other. Stella nods to the man on the film camera, and then to Jake. He takes a breath.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Jake exhales. “Could I by chance have another minute?” he asks, embarrassed. Stella looks surprised, and then irritated. He can see what the camera is picking up on the screen next to her, and so he sees Serenity give her a harsh look from over his shoulder. So Stella relents, and waves him off.

Jake decides to go outside, and breathe in real fresh air, rather than the studio’s simulated environment. He pushes past the guard at the exit, and takes a left to the little grouping of trees that were mostly added for aesthetic purposes. But the grass is still mostly green, and the trees are lovely shades of oranges and yellows at this time of year. He sits down and rests his back against the trunk of one of the trees.

When he looks back to the studio, he sees one of the security guards stepping out to most likely chase after him, but they’re quickly followed by Serenity who says something Jake can’t hear, and then the guard nods and stays at the door. Still in eyesight, still in earshot, but far enough away for some privacy. Splendid.

Even in the open air, even if he’s not in a real forest or anywhere near the preserve he grew up in, he feels a little less overwhelmed. Well, everything is still a lot and is quite stressful to think about, but at the very least he’s escaped from all the poking and prodding. Even so, he can’t put his finger on exactly what bothers him about what Jane said.

“Jake?”

“I’d prefer to be left alone, thanks,” he responds on impulse. Then he looks up at the girl standing over him. “Oh, hello, Roxy. I didn’t realize it was you.” She looks tired, hair messy and just wearing a t-shirt that’s large enough to drape over her figure and hang off one shoulder.

“Yeah!” she says, and sits down next to him. “If you really want to be alone, I can leave.”

“Er, no, you’re fine,” Jake says awkwardly.

“Okay,” she agrees.

There’s a beat of silence. Then Jake asks, “...Did I wake you?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t sleep,” Roxy shrugs. “Why, are you up to some shenanigans? Is it that suspicious fella over there watching you?” she points to the security guard.

“Well, partly, I suppose. But he’s just part of the security team. He works for me. Since last Wednesday I’m not really supposed to be left alone, so I’ve got to put up with it for the time being.”

“That sucks!” Roxy exclaims. “How have you not gone nuts yet?”

“It’s not so bad! It’s just a tad bit of a step further from normal,” he explains.

“Ah, alright. Then what’s  _ really _ bothering you?”

“Hmm…” Jake frowns, thinking. The question catches him off guard. “I’m not quite sure of the answer to that, to be quite honest. Today has been routine, just a shoot. ...I suppose I found out that Jane finds me attractive,” he shrugs.

Roxy laughs, “Does that bother you?”

“Not… particularly? But it’s not just her, and teenage girls aren’t really the target audience of a wildlife preserve, right? I don’t quite understand what’s keeping them interested.”

“...You, right?” she asks, uncertain. Jake shrugs. “Listen m’dude, girls will latch onto any weird cultural icons, and they get pretty weird about it.”

“Jane said I was  _ boyband _ status. I don’t want to be One Direction!”

“You don’t really sing or dance, so I don’t think you need to be worried about that, Jake,” Roxy laughs again. “Listen. You’re famous! You like movies, right? And you like doing promotional stuff for the preserve? Does it really matter who likes you and who doesn’t?”

“I’m not sure. I’m just afraid of ruining my grandmother’s image for her life’s work, is all. I didn’t ask for this sort of attention, and if I’m being entirely truthful, it’s making me quite uncomfortable! Do other men regularly wear shorts this short in France, Roxy?” Jake pulls at the hem of his shorts, frowning.

“I mean, it’s France, so sort of, but I guess I see what you mean. Honestly, I think you just need to have a little more confidence in yourself. You’re doing a great job, from what I can tell. I’m sure that your grandmother would be proud! You’re doing all of this by yourself! Even if you needed the help, you’ve got us now. So. Don’t worry about anything, and if you’ve got a problem, I can literally punch it away with my fists,” Roxy finishes, leaning back again with a satisfied smile on her face. Jake guesses that the whole cluster knows by now that his Gran is gone, even if the rest of the world doesn’t.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jake says, feeling a lot better already. “Not a lot has to change, even, but I will talk to Serenity a bit I think! Just to double check that the team is taking my image a little more seriously.”

“There we go!” Roxy says, and gives him a fistbump.

“Okay, thank you for the support, Roxy, but I should get back before I delay any longer! And you should get to sleep,” he says, standing up. The security guard is looking impatient, and Jake guesses he would have less than five minutes until he was called back anyway.

“Mmm, I guess you’re right,” she sighs. “I’ll walk back with you though, I’ve never seen a professional photoshoot. Must be pretty cool, right?”

“I suppose!” Jake leads them back to the studio, giving a nod to the grumpy looking security man. Roxy salutes him and sticks out her tongue. Inside, Stella looks to have been arguing with Serenity, but both look visibly relieved to see Jake, looking refreshed and ready.

“Jake! Thank goodness. Okay, time is of the essence, so onto your mark, please!” Stella commands, pointing to the stage.

It goes much better this time. It goes so much better, that when he’s all done and Roxy’s satisfied enough to have left to go to bed, he gets a one-armed hug around the shoulders from Serenity. “Keep it up, Jake, wherever you get your motivation from seems to be working. Don’t lose your mojo, don’t let anything rattle you. Everything’s about the press right now, understand?”

“Yes, Serenity,” he nods. She nods back, satisfied, and pulls out her phone.

“Now, we should get back to negotiating contracts. It looks like you’re good to go for that movie deal, which is fantastic, and you’ve also got a new offer for a business meeting.” She frowns. “There could be a problem, though. It’s from one… Jane Crocker, representing both CrockerCorp and SkaiaNet.”

Jake’s face drops, and he lowers his voice a significant amount. “Is that the best course of action?” Privately, he wonders, why didn’t Jane just approach him herself? They could have meetings whenever they wanted. He was  _ just _ talking to her!

She raises her eyebrows and shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. A compromise could be a good thing, but I have a feeling you’ll be getting the short end of the bargain no matter what we do. It might be wisest to just decline.”

“...I’ll think on it.” After all, if he could convince Jane to come here, to him, then he might be able to solve some of their problems, right? What if he could single handedly save the day, and free her from the clutches of her wicked step-mother? Fuck the movie deal, this sounded leagues more action-packed and interesting. ...Well, he still very much wants to be in a movie. But perhaps they’ll make movies about  _ this _ someday, is the point! Even so, he thinks it’s best not to act too rash. All the best spies do a little reconnaissance before a secret mission, obviously. And he’ll be sure to emphasize  _ secret _ .

####  Part 7: Roxy

Roxy won’t lie, she’s been just a bit touchy recently. With Dave and Calliope both so on board with helping her drink a little less, she’s got some good chaperones that do their jobs really well, which is sometimes annoying, but mostly a good thing probably. If Calliope isn’t with her, she can  _ feel _ Dave keeping an eye on her. But she and Dave are doing the same thing for Rose, because she’ll be damned if she’s going on this sobriety journey by herself. It’s just boring as all hell.

But  _ speaking _ of boring as all hell, Calliope’s mentioned that her family might like to meet Roxy. “We discussed it on the phone the other night, my dad wants to know who I’ve been spending my time with at school,” she says, nervous as ever and tapping her fingers together.

“But you don’t like your dad,” Roxy points out. “Or your brother.”

“So if you were there, it might go better?” Callie suggests. Ah. Her true motive reveals itself. She sighs.

“Oh, Callie, how could I say no now? You’ve trapped me in social conventions,” Roxy says, throwing a hand across her forehead. “You fiend!”

Callie smiles. “So you’ll go?”

“I have to,” she smiles back. “It’s gonna suck, huh?” Callie shrugs, but apologetically, so Roxy understands that yes, it’s gonna suck. She huffs, sending a piece of her hair flying away. “Okay! In exchange for one glass of wine, because I think that’s fair,” she holds up a finger.

Callie looks uncomfortable. “Roxy… I don’t know about that.”

“If I’m sober I might die though!” she complains. But Callie looks firm. “Ugh, okay. I’ll just suffer then, I guess.” She heaves a big sigh. “Six, right?”

“Yes! See you in a few hours,” Callie waves, still looking a little guilty. It’s sweet that she feels bad, but Roxy can respect that she’s staying strong in the face of her unbeatable charisma. She pulls her into a quick hug, kisses her on the cheeks, and sends her away.

At six o’clock, large, pink, heart-shaped sunglasses cover Roxy’s face as she waits for Callie outside of the dorms. She’s also wearing a long pink knit cardigan draped over her shoulders, with a white skirt and black skinny jeans under it. It’s too cold for her usual fashion sensibilities, but she can definitely work with cardigans. They’re very cozy.

Callie runs over to her, probably worried about being late. “Oh! I can’t see anything at all behind those glasses!” she comments, coming to a stop.

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Roxy admits. “Cool, right? I wanna make a good first impression.”

She grimaces. “...Roxy. You know that my dad is very traditional, right? He might prefer more… normal, rather than cool.”

Roxy laughs. “Nah, listen, trust me, I’m really good with parents! Don’t worry about it! He’ll think I’m super cool and got that great French fashion, but I can be cool in a, like, normal way, too. If you want. Plus…” she taps her forehead, “I’ve got backup, in the  _ incredibly small _ chance I do screw something up. It’s literally impossible for something to go wrong.”

“Oh, boy, that was quite possibly the worst thing you could have said,” Callie mutters, shaking her head. “Alright, let’s go try to… make it through this, I suppose.”

They make a short walk through campus, and Roxy starts to get more and more anxious about it. Maybe the sunglasses  _ were _ a bad idea? No, now she’s committed, and Callie wouldn’t ever let her live it down if she backed out now. They’ve probably already seen her wearing them anyway, as they approach to where a classy car painted a teal color dark enough to basically be green sits waiting for them. The front window is rolled down and through it Roxy can see Callie’s brother, Caliborn, playing on a handheld game and looking irritated. He looks really eerily similar to Callie, with short cropped stark white hair and skin not much different, even though on a technicality they’re only half siblings. Callie herself is also andrydgenous enough that Roxy’s not sure that she’d be able to tell them apart if she had enough alcohol in her system. Man, she wishes she had more alcohol in her system.

She beats that thought back with a mental brain stick. They get closer to the car, with Callie shooting her nervous glances, until her brother sees them and loudly says to his left, “She’s here,  _ finally _ !” They’re close enough that Roxy can see the one difference between the two, in their eyes. Callie’s are a mellow green, while Caliborn’s are bright red. She wonders why Callie didn’t get that quirk of albinism, that would have been cool as fuck.

Caliborn rolls his eyes and gets out of the car, and from the other side appears a man that’s only a few inches taller than the twins, and several inches shorter than Roxy. He’s wearing a bespoke white suit, and he carries himself in a way that makes Roxy panic a bit. Shit, Callie wasn’t kidding. What if he thinks she’s weird?

“Hello Calliope. You must be Roxanne,” the man says, extending a hand. Oh, power move right from the start. Okay. “Andrew Scratch. But please, call me Andrew.”

Roxy shakes his hand, worrying about whether her grip was too tight or too loose. She can’t really tell. His was firm. Why are handshakes so complicated? It takes her a second to respond. “Oh, yes! Nice to meet you Monsieur Andrew.” She looks at Caliborn, wondering if he’ll also want an introduction, but his arms are crossed and he’s not looking at her, and he looks prickly enough that she’s not going to push it.

M. Andrew smiles, but it doesn’t look sincere. It looks almost… smug? That’s a weird reaction. Maybe Roxy’s the one being weird. “Just Andrew, thanks. Should we get going?” She quickly nods and he gestures at the car before going back around to the driver’s side. Roxy opens the door and scooches to the other side, Callie climbing in after her.

Callie gives her a shaky grin and a little thumbs up, but Roxy knows her well enough to see that she’s really nervous about this. More so than usual, even. Okay, so operation Act Normal isn’t going super great. But that’s why she has backup. She tries to think about who might be the most normal of her group, and John comes to mind first. She reaches out.

John’s in some kind of maths class. Roxy doesn’t really care. She just appears at his desk and taps him on the shoulder, leaning down to whisper, “Hey, can you help me act normal in front of my best friend’s family?”

John looks around at his class before nodding discreetly. He then shows up in the car, sitting between her and Callie. “What’s happening?”

“Going to dinner,” Roxy says.

“What was that?” M. Andrew asks. Shit.

“Um, nothing,” she says, unable to think of literally any excuse.

“I’m sorry, my French isn’t great yet, so you’ll have to speak clearly,” he says.

“It’s okay, I’m fluent in English!” John says, in English. At least, Roxy assumes that he says it in English? It still sounds like French to her, but Callie and M. Andrew both look surprised.

“You are?” Callie mouths to Roxy, who nods. Luckily, she doesn’t press it. She’s smart, she probably figured out exactly what’s going on. 

“Oh? It’s not often you meet French youths who know it, I’m impressed.” Roxy can tell that he’s speaking English now, just because it feels like her brain needs to take an extra step to understand it. She guesses that her being linked to John translates it? Since apparently John and probably everyone else in her cluster haven’t actually been speaking French this entire time. “You do have a distinct American accent, though, which is even more impressive.” He’s not smiling, and that makes Roxy nervous.

John covers, “Thanks! I learned from an American.” Roxy realizes that she’s doomed John to talking for her the entire night. She doesn’t know English for shit. No more than basics, anyway.

“I’ve been helping her English, and she’s been helping my French,” Callie supplies.

For the rest of the drive Roxy has to tell John what to say from inside of his school classroom, and then he’ll say it out loud for her. Callie is a super great team player, she backs up and helps her out with any claim that she makes, warding off numerous questions that are honestly kind of weird for a friend’s dad to be asking. Does he  _ really _ need to know her entire backstory to understand why, exactly, a French girl who’s never lived anywhere else might  _ deign _ to learn some English? It’s making both Roxy and John uncomfortable and stressed.

She doesn’t tell him a lot.

It feels like an eternity later that they’re being seated at a nice but not extremely fancy restaurant, in the outdoor seating area. It’s probably been like twelve minutes, max. Caliborn hasn’t said a word, completely absorbed into his video games, but Roxy is honestly really jealous. She’d kill for her DS right now, and the new Super Mario game her foster moms had sent for her birthday. If she finds out that’s what Caliborn’s been playing this whole time, she’s gonna flip. With all the chaos going on she’s barely had time to even start it.

Roxy doesn’t take off her cardigan when she sits down, feeling like she’d be too exposed. Plus it’s just really cozy and that’s the kind of comfort she needs right now. M. Andrew takes off his suit jacket, revealing a bright green shirt underneath it. “Caliborn, would you put that away while we eat?” he requests.

“Why?” Caliborn asks, only looking up for a second.

“Because it would be rude to ignore everyone at dinner,” M. Andrew reprimands calmly. Caliborn grumbles, but slides it into the pocket of his pullover hoodie. “And Roxanne, would you mind taking off your sunglasses indoors?”

Roxy blinks, and tells John, “I can’t do that. Tell him my eyes are sensitive to light?” That’s the excuse she heard Dave say, once.

“Um, no thank you, my eyes are sensitive to the light,” John says, and then aside to Roxy, “Why can’t you take them off?”

“Oh, we can request to be moved inside, if the light is bothering you that much,” M. Andrew says, standing. John reacts faster than Roxy.

“No, it’s such a nice day outside, the sun’s going down anyway,” he says quickly. M. Andrew gives Roxy a slightly annoyed look, but sits down. John sighs in relief, and Roxy appreciates that! He’s a team player! He deserves to know what’s up.

“I’m literally just trying to prove a point to Calliope, lmao,” she whispers to him. Not that anyone can hear her in his world, but it feels like the kind of thing she should whisper about. “I thought it would make me seem cooler, and maybe like, less anxious, but now I’ve gone too far. And also I am… totally not high. At all. Not even a little bit, so... Just help me out on this one.”

“Roxy, that’s absolutely ridiculous,” John rolls his eyes. She tilts down her sunglasses and bats her eyelashes at him. “That’s even stupider!”

“Well I can’t back down now, so,” she shrugs, pushing them back up. She’s also a bit paranoid, now.

John huffs, but after he sits with it for a moment he cracks a smile. “So it’s like a prank?”

“Mm-hmm! Yes! Exactly like that. You down to participate now?” she asks. He shrugs, and she brings her attention back to dinner.

She realizes there’s been a bit of a lull in the conversation, while she was tuned out. Callie’s saying, “No, I really am enjoying my studies! Art is my favorite, of course, but my literature classes are interesting as well! Even if they’re in French.”

“And Caliborn? How is your school?” M. Andrew asks.

“I hate it. It sucks,” Caliborn shrugs. In the awkward pause that follows a waiter approaches, and asks for their drink orders. Roxy thanks whatever higher powers there may be that she can just speak French to her, and Callie does as well. Caliborn can speak some French, too, apparently he goes to a different boarding school than the two of them, a male-exclusive one. But he speaks English just to be difficult, is what Roxy gathers. Even M. Andrew uses the limited French that he knows.

M. Andrew chooses this transitional stage to drop a bomb. “Well, Roxanne, or whomever I’m speaking to, would you do me the favor of passing on a message to one miss Rose Lalonde?”

He’s smiling, which catches her completely off guard. It takes a moment for his words to register, when Roxy physically reels back in shock, and her heart palpitations make her cough before she can try to force any words out. Again, John recovers from the shock faster.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John says.

He rolls his eyes. “Come, now. Have I gotten her attention yet?”

“Yes.” Roxy turns her head and sees Rose next to her, her hands balled into fists, though Rose might not be aware of that bit. Dirk is also there, offering a silent and stiff support. They must have been summoned by her unbridled panic flaring up. Rose is the one who spoke. Her tone is cautious, but curious. “What did you want to say?”

“I only wanted to request that she stop trying to contact me. I’m a very busy man, and I do not have time to humor her.” Both Caliborn and Callie are watching with rapt interest, though Roxy has no idea how much context Caliborn may or may not have.

“Rose?” Roxy asks, popping into Rose’s own school, where she’s sitting with Kanaya in a little table with an umbrella outside. The sun shines directly overhead. “Who is this guy?”

Rose huffs. “He’s the one who first awakened our cluster. What is he doing with you?”

“He’s Callie’s dad,” Roxy shrugs. “I had no idea!”

“You should be very careful, Roxy. We don’t know his motivations,” Dirk says, also sitting with her and Rose. John’s still there as well.

“He’s like four feet tall,” John points out. “I don’t think he can be  _ that _ scary.”

“We don’t know that,” Dirk repeats, turning to him.

“Roxanne?” She’s snapped back to dinner with the Scratches. “Does she have a response, or shall we continue this dinner?”

“Umm,” Roxy says, looking back at Rose. She’s staring at Scratch with an unreadable expression, brow furrowed. “ _ Un moment _ ,” she says.

Rose huffs. “I don’t know.” She raises her voice, “Everyone, this is the man I told you to keep an eye out for. The one who triggered our rebirth.” With that statement, the rest of their cluster appears, in varying states of awareness. Jane and Jake look like they were just woken up, Jane merely gives a nod before she disappears again. Jade appears on Roxy’s other side, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, good job wearing those sunglasses, Roxy! How did you know?” Jade asks. She just gives her a baffled look, and then Jade looks even more impressed. “Oh! You didn’t? Um, well, Sensates can make bonds by eye contact, and then they can visit even if they’re not in the same cluster. Since this man is obviously a Sensate, he would have been able to visit with you if he ever made eye contact. But I don’t think he can, with those in the way. So. Good work team!”

“Good thing you didn’t take them off,” John laughs nervously.

“Yeah, actually, I’m the smartest girl in the world,” Roxy covers. “I totally knew the whole time. Instincts, ya know?”

Rose ignores this whole conversation, taking the initiative and speaking to Scratch directly, borrowing Roxy’s voice. So, correction, indirectly. “I would appreciate at least one more question and answer session, and then I would be happy to do what you have asked. Knowledge is power, and it is the only thing keeping my cluster safe at the moment. You have to understand.”

M. Andrew sighs. “That isn’t the answer I hoped for, but very well. One more. I will contact you at a later date, then, miss Lalonde.”

Rose gives a firm nod, and then vanishes again, as does the rest of the cluster. Except for John. Dinner soon follows as first expected, awkward as hell, but now tense in a way that’s almost terrifying. It’s not that he’s done anything particularly villainous ( _ yet _ , Dirk’s voice in her head reminds her), but he’s also extremely off putting even during small talk. Roxy sees why Callie hates talking about her family so much.

#### 

####  Part 8: Dirk

Dirk’s mental assessments of his cluster are coming along nicely. Assessments, profiles, studies, whatever. In order to most effectively use his  _ abilities _ , he has to understand the people he shares them with. He’s got to ensure that they’re all trustworthy, or that none of them are going to turn on each other. His main concern at the moment is Jane.

From what Dirk has pieced together so far, Jane’s been prepped to be an heiress her entire life. She was a lighthearted child, but once her stepmother came into her life that had to be suppressed. There’s still clear remnants of her old sense of humor, poking through every now and then, but for the most part she forces herself to stay serious and on task. He actually admires that a lot. However, it’s currently being used in favour of the opposition. But he’s got Jade on the case, and even though their first attempt to mess with the tiaratop failed it doesn’t mean their second attempt will too.

Jade seems to have never had to suppress anything in her life, to contrast Jane. She’s got endless energy and actual smarts to back it up. In all seriousness, she’s definitely the smartest in their cluster, especially in the realm of science and math. He would be jealous but even if neither of them had a proper high school education, at least she had her grandpa, who as far as Dirk has deduced is some kind of literal rocket scientist. So he can remain confident that he’s done to the best of his abilities, and still be duly impressed with Jade. She’s proven to be a trustworthy partner, a little bit more so than Jake has.

It’s not that Jake is incapable of handling a crisis. It’s just that he doesn’t have the right experience, and he doesn’t take it seriously. The way he treats it like some kind of movie action adventure is equal parts aggravating and weirdly really endearing. It’s fine that he has passions. And after all, Dirk does know that he could trust Jake to wield a gun, and if all else fails he can use his celebrity status and good looks to get past any particularly tricky predicaments. But before he passes any real final judgements on Jake, he should get to know him a little better. Seeing someone at their worst makes for an inaccurate-

“Dirk? It’s about time to close dear, would you start picking up chairs?” The woman addressing him is tall, with long wavy black hair, no less than seven piercings in her face, and tattoos running up and down her arms that are exposed by the black halter top she wears.

“Sure,” Dirk nods. Porrim wipes down the bar while Dirk goes around and wipes tables before putting the chairs on top of them. The bouncer of the bar, Cronus, escorts the last few guests outside and flips the sign to ‘Closed’. Dirk wipes his hands on his apron, and gets the broom from the back room of the bar. Where was he?

Right, Jake. Well, he thinks that he’s said everything there is to say on that matter. Roxy looks to be much more reliable than Jake from what he’s seen, but more on personal or emotional matters than anything else. He can tell that there’s definitely more to her than meets the eye, and he imagines that once she’s sobered up she will be an incredible asset. If he can be the details guy, she can be in charge of the emotional side to the rest of their group, because Dirk sure as hell can’t do that himself. He can recognize that even if he’s the most strategically useful member of the cluster that he does need to be balanced out sometimes, and she seems like the one for the job. And since she’d landed herself and John in the middle of whatever last night was, he’ll find out soon what she’s really made of. Hopefully she’ll be more smart about it, unlike how Jake was. They’ll have to play their cards right in that area.

He checks out with Porrim and exchanges a cordial nod with Cronus, then leaves to go home for the night. Home being a relative term.

He hasn’t gotten a very good read of John yet. Like he said before, it’s hard to get an accurate understanding of someone at their lows, but it is telling that this is the first real tragedy John has ever gone through. John seems the type to have led a completely normal and mundane life thus far, and Dirk would feel bad about messing that up however indirectly if he cared. Like Roxy, he has a good grip of people’s emotions, and Dirk can admit that he can have a good sense of humor when he tries. They don’t have to be close for him to decide John’s a valuable member.

Next to Jane, Dave is also taking a priority in his headspace recently. His situation is tricky. Mostly because none of them can decide if something actually needs to be done or if passivity is permissible in this case. He does trust Dave to handle this sort of thing on his own, and he’s found so far that he can trust Dave with most things. Dave has had enough reality to keep him grounded and make him stronger, similar to Dirk. If he’s honest, Dave and Rose are the most similar to himself.

He likes Rose. She has some of the same sarcastic intellectual sense of humor as him. She can keep up with him, and he trusts her as he does Dave. So, they’re making some plans together.

“Tell me, Dirk, do you live here?” Rose asks, looking around his room. It’s just the one room, with a small kitchenette in the corner and a bathroom to the side of it.

“No, I’m just  _ that  _ secretive about my personal life,” he deadpans. “Yes, I live in a motel. I didn’t just get one for the night to talk to you. I’m not a prostitute.”

“Clearly,” she says. “By yourself?” He gives her a nod and she has the tact not to press more, which he can appreciate. He knows that certain others would have blundered into a conversation they were not prepared to have. “Alright, then. Let’s go over the mess we’ve landed ourselves in.”

In Rose’s room a portion of the wall is covered by a large blackboard. She erases the little doodles and marks of symbols that he doesn’t recognize, and uses plain white chalk to divide it into two columns, labeling them ‘Problems’ and ‘Solutions.’ He can already sense that the problems will number much more than the solutions, no matter how much thought they put into it.

“The biggest problem is clearly the Condescension,” Dirk supplies. He takes the chalk and writes it at the top of the ‘Problems’ panel. Under it, in subcategories, he writes Jane and Feferi’s names. He looks back to Rose.

She takes the chalk back. “Potential solutions include… Jade subverting the tiaratops without the Peixes  _ or _ Jane noticing.” She writes it under ‘Solutions.’ “But that will be difficult.” She draws an arrow down from Condescension, notated with a question mark. “The… assailants. The same ones that went after Jake and Dave, who may or may not be connected with the Condescension.”

“Solutions are that kid Dave and Jade met. He had some connection to them.” Rose nods at him and writes ‘Karkat’ under their solutions. Dirk huffs and takes the chalk again, editing ‘Solutions’ to read ‘ _ Potential _ Solutions.’ “That wasn’t gonna work for me.”

“Understandable,” she nods again. “And though Jake seems safe and has his own underground bunker,” she frowns, as the existence of said underground bunker took them all by surprise, “we might need to move Dave. For several reasons.”

“So his brother goes under the problems,” Dirk says, writing it down. “Anything we can conceivably do about that? Moving him would be difficult, as far as I know there isn’t anyone near enough to help him.”

“I am closest,” Rose hums. “I’ve been speaking about this with Kanaya a bit. I would hate to ask anything of her, but she  _ does  _ have a car.” Dirk silently writes ‘Security Risks’ on the problems board. She notices. “I promise we can trust her, don’t give me that look. I can speak with her more, but we should decide what the best course of action is first.”

“Does anything need to be done?” he asks. “Dave has been handling this on his own for years now. He might not be handling it  _ well _ ,” he adds, remembering the fight he first met Dave in, “but surely he can last a while longer.”

Rose raises an eyebrow. “But he doesn’t  _ have  _ to, if we do something to help. I absolutely have the space and means to house him with me, and if Kanaya is alright with going on a road trip to Texas with me than by all means I think we should.” Ah. It seems that by pushing back he’s only made her more determined. He’ll have to pay attention to that in the future.

He backs down and writes ‘Kanaya’s Car’ under their potential solutions board with a stiff nod. “We should at least ask what he wants, first.”

“Sure,” she concedes. “It would be impolite not to.” Rose holds her chin and looks at the board again. “Another big problem: Scratch.”

“Exactly how much trouble do you estimate Roxy is in?” he asks while he writes it down. She frowns.

“Not completely sure, yet. Kanaya made it sound very serious, from what I gather he’s a large part of the reason her cluster is so fragmented. I would prefer that we were overly cautious to our cluster being torn apart like that.”

“So, a lot,” he nods. “Especially because that loops around to our first problem of the Condescension.” They consider this in silence for a few moments, neither coming up with a solution for that, or even a potential one.

Rose breaks the silence with a low groan. “And Jade is trapped in Japan.” She falls back onto the bed dramatically in defeat. It doesn’t matter whose bed, for all appearances she collapsed onto both of them. Dirk carefully sits down next to her.

“Jade is in the perfect place to help us, remember?” he reassures her, though his expression remains blank. He’s only stating what they already know. “And Roxy might be too, Scratch didn’t seem the type for direct confrontation. Roxy needs to be very cautious, and learn as much as she can. Worst case scenario I steal a car and go get her.”

She looks over at him from under where her arms are draped across her face, “Write that down.” Dirk gets up and takes the chalk, and goes to do as she says. However, no letters appear on the board where he marks them. “Well that’s odd,” Rose says, momentarily distracted as she sits up.

“Probably something to do with the fact that I am not actually here,” Dirk shrugs, and looks back to her. “Come over here again.” Rose pulls herself up and stands next to him once more, and he tries writing it again. This time, it works.

“Fascinating,” Rose remarks dryly. “Does that mean that I am actually the one writing all of these, and your actions are merely a mental projection?”

“Sounds plausible,” Dirk shrugs. “The handwriting is still different, though.”

“Mmm,” she hums. “I want to experiment with this more. But later. For now, I believe that it’s about time my mother gets home from work. She’s been insufferable recently, ever since she found out of my Sensate status.” She absently writes ‘my mother’ on the Problems board.

“Your mother the scientist? Yeah, I’d imagine this is a huge discovery for her.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “This is the most attention I’ve ever gotten in my life. It serves only as a painful reminder that she only cares about how useful I may be, rather than the unconditional love of a parent.”

“Or maybe she’s finally found a common interest,” Dirk says, an annoyed frown slipping through. “It seems that you don’t make it easy for her to spend time with you. All this,” he gestures to her room, which is incredibly well decorated and clearly perfectly tailored to what he knows to be Rose’s preferences, “doesn’t seem like  _ conditional _ love to me.”

“You don’t know her,” Rose defends, but her face has gone softer, which Dirk takes to mean that he let something slip that he didn’t intend to. Damn. She takes a quick glance around Dirk’s motel room which he lives in by himself, and backs down. “But perhaps you have a point. At any rate, I’m sure she would take in Dave and any other Sensates who needed shelter, motives notwithstanding.”

“You might even ask for her help with some of these,” he gestures to the blackboard. “Well, go say hello to her or whatever you do when she gets home, and it’s nearly three here, so I plan on getting some sleep.”

“Right, I always forget about time differences,” Rose smiles hesitantly. “Yes, you should go to sleep.”

Dirk gives her a nod and a slight salute, and then he retreats back into himself. Alone, he ponders what new information he has.

Rose is smart, like Dirk, and also like Dirk, she’s slightly lacking in emotional intelligence. She has an inability to accept love shown to her, which Dirk supposes is also true of himself, but he has more reason for it. A neglectful parent who is incapable of being open with her daughter and vice versa explains Rose, why she has problems with being told what she can and cannot do, and why she presents herself as an independent and mature adult at only sixteen. Dirk still sees her as a useful asset, of course. Still seemingly more useful to what their cluster needs to accomplish at the moment. That being said, he will have to leave the emotional sides of leadership to Roxy, as John is compromised in that area currently and Roxy will fit the role just as well. Yes, if Dirk and Roxy can direct the group with Rose and John as seconds in their respective areas, he is confident that they will be able to solve all of their problems and any new ones that come up, eventually. The situation at hand is delicate, and will need careful planning and careful management. If Jade can do her job, they will be set right on course, and once they understand who Karkat is and what he’s capable of, and Kanaya as well for that matter, then that’s more problems solved. But Rose and her impending meeting with Scratch… That could change a lot of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *opens third eye* Jake English Is Alex From Target
> 
> please please tell me what you think!!! specifically, if you think anything is off or out of character or if i'm just messing up their characterizations in general, let me know! is there too much exposition, not enough, are things confusing, that kinda thing. and i'm definitely not abandoning this anytime soon, it just takes an insanely long time to write. for comparison, chapter 1 was roughly 15,000 words, this chapter is about 21,000 words!! that's a lot! and if you want some more background info, for a lot of the dialogue i format it like pesterlogs in a different document, that really helps with character voices, ESPECIALLY with dave and kanaya. still having a ton of fun writing jade and dirk, for some reason, while jake makes me wanna yell constantly. i always like how his sections turn out tho. this is rambly but i have two whole months worth of thoughts to put in here so
> 
> um... see you in another two months!


	4. Relocating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and made some tiny little minor edits to the first two chapters, gramatical errors, a couple continuity things, whatevs
> 
> And this chapter is gonna be in chronological order instead of character order, so heads up!

####  Part 1: John

Roxy has a proposition for John, he guesses she trusts him more now after they had that insane dinner together. Oh, and it’s not just Roxy either, it’s her and Jade. Like some kind of super-secret spy mission, if he’s getting it right.

“Wait, so what do you want  _ me  _ to do?” John asks Roxy. “If you’re hacking the tiaratop and Jade’s taking it apart?”

“Just be like a lookout, or distract Jane, that’d probably be good,” Roxy says. “In case she wakes up. This is a three man mission, trust me.”

“Also, test subject,” Jade adds.

“Yeah, and test subject,” Roxy agrees. “To make sure what we’re doing is working.”

They’re having this conversation while Jane is asleep, clustered out on her balcony together to outline their plan further in depth. It’s very short notice, but John wasn’t really busy. It’s just school, and it’s not like anyone is going to notice if he leaves right after Dad drops him off. He has plenty of excuses to blame it on, and even if he might feel bad about lying to his dad, he’ll understand if John needs time off because of Nanna’s passing. It’s totally excusable, and foolproof.

“Okay. I can probably do that,” John nods. He’s sitting on a bench next to the lake, it was pretty easy to catch a bus there and he could have some privacy while not being super suspicious. Lake watching. Perfectly normal. And it’s a nice day out, too! A good morning for daring escapades.

“Great! Jade? You ready?” Roxy asks, nudging Jade. She’s been pretty quiet, now and in general recently. John would wonder why, except he can feel all the thoughts and anxieties rushing through her head constantly nowadays.

“Yep!” Jade says, her eyes focusing again. “Just open the access port, and plug this in, right?” she asks, shaking her phone in the air.

“Mm-hmm. Then I can hack it.” Roxy is reclined in her bed, her laptop sitting on her legs. John wishes he was better at programming, but his skill levels aren’t really up to understanding the specifics of what she’s doing.

Jade nods again and she puts a finger to her lips while she slides open the balcony door. She slips back inside, where it’s very dark, and avoids tripping over her bedding in a practiced move. She’s probably had lots of secret conversations outside in the past week, after they suspected Jane can’t quite be trusted anymore. It’s really frustrating that she has to sneak around like this, and if anything it just makes his now rational and entirely justified hatred of Betty Crocker that much more personal.

Jane keeps her tiaratop on while she sleeps now, which not only is inconvenient for their mission at the moment but also cannot be healthy for her mental state. John shivers at the thought of the batterwitch herself whispering in his dreams, and he can’t imagine how Jane must feel. But her face is peaceful.

“Jade?” John whispers. He doesn’t really need to whisper, but disturbing the silence in the room feels wrong. “Can we share with each other while we sleep?

She bites her lip in response, brows furrowed. “Maybe…?”

“I was thinkin’ we could Indiana Jones switch it out,” Roxy offers. “Put somethin’ else on her head.”

“If I could share with her and just take it off, it would seem like she took it off herself,” John shrugs. “She might notice, though.”

“Wait, how often do we actually visit with Janey nowadays?” Roxy asks. “Do we ever do it when she’s wearing it?” Both of them shrug. “Then I guess just try it, John.”

“Okay,” he says. He shifts his focus more on Jane, rather than Jade or Roxy, and moves to sit down on the bed next to her. The bed doesn’t move under his weight. John reaches out, hesitates, and then very carefully slides the thin metal band painted bright red off of Jane’s head. A light on the side of it comes on, a blue light, and John doesn’t know what that means, so on an impulse he puts it on his own head.

“John, be careful!” Jade exclaims as quietly as she can, her hand going to cover her mouth in surprise.

“No it’s fine, look!” Roxy says, and points at Jane. John can’t see what they’re looking at, but she explains, “To me it still looks like Jane’s wearing it, when I tune out John. See?”

Jade brings herself to look away from John for a second, and then she sighs in relief. “You’re right. Well, John, what do you see?”

He can sort of see text swimming around in the faintest traces of his vision, but he can’t quite make it out. He can feel himself slip into almost a trance-like state, but he’s still aware of this fact, and he’s sure that he can end it whenever he likes, that he still has some control. But he feels his muscles relax, and his eyes go unfocused as his breathing slows. He lets it happen, curious, and while he’s keeping his guard up he will admit that it’s a little easier to slip deeper. He frowns. “This is so weird, guys. You should probably start doing the stuff, now.” Jade nods and pulls out her phone and the cable, moving to the side of John’s head instead of Jane’s.

Well you’re not Jane. It looks like the text sort of floats in front of his eyes, but he’s pretty sure it’s more of a mental projection than being really physically there. There’s no audible sound, just text, but he swears he gets the slightest trace of a Brooklyn accent. It’s really weird, and he wonders if this is what Jane experiences all the time.

“No, I’m not,” John agrees. Jade and Roxy both look at him in surprise.

“John?” Jade whispers.

John?  the text echoes. It feels curious, yet smug.  Right, John. you’re one a’ them.

“I guess?” he shrugs, confused. Jade shoves him gently on the arm, making very intense eye contact as punishment for ignoring her. “It’s talking to me,” he explains. “But like… mentally. Sort of like how we talk to each other, but also different? Sorry, it’s kinda hard to explain.”

“Omg,” Roxy says, pronouncing the letters that sound kinda funny in a French accent, “Be so careful, okay? We’ll try to get this done fast.” There’s a tug on his head, pulling him to the left, as Jade pulls open a tiny hatch on the metal right over his temple. She plugs in the USB connected to her phone, and opens an app Roxy had her download.

Still livin up in washington?

“Um,” John says, frowning. 

Jk, i never lose track of important assets. What brings you to my neck a’ the woods tonight, john?

“ _ Um _ ,” John repeats, slightly louder. To Roxy he says, “You might want to hurry up, I’m pretty sure she’s onto us.”

“On it,” Roxy answers, typing on her laptop furiously. “There’s a lotta shit in here to hack, ‘s probably the most advanced tech I’ve ever seen, so like, props to your Gramps, Jade.”

“Yeah,” Jade says flatly, still holding up her phone next to John’s head and tapping her leg anxiously.

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” Roxy mutters under her breath, not looking up. “This thing is programmed to do a literal million things, what are we prioritizing here?”

“The things that make Jane not able to think for herself!” Jade says. “The things that mess with her Sensate abilities, like Feferi!”

“Alrighty, I think I got it,” she says, scrolling through several screens worth of code until she finds the commands she needs.

Sorry, but nah.

Roxy swears, and starts typing faster. John looks over at Jade’s phone, seeing lines of white text turning red and scrolling faster down the screen. “Damn, okay, she’s definitely countering what I’m doing. ...I think I got it, though...” Her voice trails off as she concentrates, then without looking up she snaps her fingers in the air. “John, distract.”

“Oh, uh, how do you know who I am?” John asks the air. The text floats in front of his eyes again, and Roxy nods.

I’ve known you since you were born, boyo. I’m a lil’ insulted you don’t remember me. Guess I coulda been more present in your life.

“Sorry, not following,” he says, perplexed. The text seems amused.

Sensate jokes. You’ll understand when you’re older.

“Keep her talking, almost done,” Roxy mutters.

John doesn’t know what else to say. He’s talking to fucking  _ Betty Crocker _ . He can honestly say he thought that would never be a situation he’d ever find himself in. He has so much to say, and also nothing at all at the same time. How does one sum up a decade of irrational-but-actually-completely-rational hatred? Would it just piss her off more? Probably. But also, he’ll probably never get this opportunity again. If all goes according to plan.

“Why did you marry Jane’s dad?” he settles on asking. There’s a lot of conspiracy theories about the subject.

You seen the man? Hot as hell, kid. The empire was an added bonus. Went through a lotta bloodshed to get it though.

He recoils in discomfort. “Bloodshed?” He pointedly ignores the other half of that answer.

Look at the timelines. It’ll start to add up, plenty a’ others have noticed the timely death of ol’ lady Crocker.

“Woah, okay, why would you tell me that?” John asks, distressed.

What’s the harm? What can you do with that info?  She’s got him there. He could post it online but without credible sources he’s just another crackpot on the internet. He wonders if Jane knows, though, that her step-mom heavily implied that she murdered Jane’s grandmother. He has to assume her dad doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have married his mother’s killer. That’s so fucked up.

Please, I didn’t kill her. That’s grunt work, gimme more credit. And though everybody suspects, nobody actually knows. Least of all Jane, ‘specially with her birthday bling that you’re appropriating. And protip: you don’t gotta talk out loud to getcha’ thoughts across. I read ya loud an’ clear.

_ Great _ , he thinks, realizing a half-second later that she totally heard that. And all his internal ranting. Oh boy. “Are you done?” he asks Roxy. She glances up at him and nods, and then dramatically presses one final key.

“It’ll take a couple seconds,” she says, and holds up four fingers.

Okay Johnny, one last thing.

“Yeah?” he says out loud, while Roxy slowly puts her fingers down one by one.

This little hackin trick was good, but don’t do it again. So I’ll see ya soon, look forward to it.

“Oh,” he answers in surprise, and then right when Roxy puts down her last finger the words all shut down, even the faint ones in the edges of his sight. He feels alone again, though Jade, Roxy, and Jane are still with him.

“Take it off,” Roxy says to him. “Give it back to Jane, and then pretend like we did nothing wrong!”

John does what she asks, as soon as Jade unplugs her phone he slides it off and puts it back onto Jane’s head. “She  _ definitely _ knows who hacked her shit,” he warns Jade. “So as soon as Jane’s okay, you should take her and Feferi and get out of here.”

“That’s the plan! Grandpa’s not listening to me right now but as soon as Jane can back me up… We can probably get out of here,” Jade says.

“Then good work team!” Roxy’s excitement finally bubbles over and she pulls both of them into a hug.

Then Jane shifts in her sleep and the three of them jump and scramble away from the bed in a panic, Jade diving into her nest of blankets. But she doesn’t seem to wake up, and they collectively breathe a sigh of relief.

Roxy breaks the silence in a low voice, “Step one to defeating Her Imperial Bitchiness is a go.”

“Oh come on, she’s not  _ that _ bad,” John rolls his eyes, then clamps a hand over his mouth while the girls look at him in shock. “I didn’t mean that.”

“...Okay, John, remind us to keep an eye on you,” Jade says, laughing uneasily.

He nods. “Yep! That’s a great idea! Please do that.”

As soon as John is alone again, sitting on his bench in front of the famous Lake Wilderness, Dirk appears next to him, staring straight ahead, and doesn’t waste time with a greeting before asking, “Status report. Is Jane still a threat to be worried about?”

John takes a breath. “Not sure. She’s not being directly influenced anymore, but the brainwashing will probably take a while to go away.”

“And you?”

“I’ll probably be fine,” he says, glancing at Dirk from the side. He still sits completely expressionless. “I talked to the Batterwitch directly. She knows what we were up to, and she knows it was me.”

Dirk nods. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation.” Then he vanishes.

####  Part 2: Rose

Rose would never say that she was nervous about meeting with the man who was quite possibly going to be if not already their primary adversary. Not out loud. She needed answers, after all, and nothing Kanaya, nor what anyone else says can make her change her mind in her search. Besides, if Scratch proves to be not as much of a source as she hopes, then her only option left is to turn to her mother. And she would rather not do that, no matter how versed in Sensates she pretends to be. That is a conversation Rose will only have as a last resort.

She knows now that the candles were a pointless idea that was destined to go nowhere, having nothing to do with this at all during that first meeting. Her floor space is clean, as is the rest of her room. The more of a professional air she puts on, the more likely forthcoming Scratch will be.

Well, it appears that it’s now or never. Rose takes a breath, and says aloud, “Scratch.”

The response is immediate. “Yes? Are you ready for our little chat, then?” He’s got his hands folded behind his back, standing maybe an inch taller than Rose, if that. She takes stock of where she is in his world, finding herself in the same green-decorated room he visited her in last time, which must have been nearly two weeks ago by this point. It feels like longer.

“I am,” Rose nods. “I’ve got some questions.”

“I assumed as much,” he agrees, condescending. Rose frowns. “But before you begin, I would prefer that you address me as  _ Doctor _ Scratch. I didn’t spend all those years getting my doctorate for nothing.”

She raises an eyebrow. “A doctorate in what?”

“Oh, is this your first question? I have two doctorates, one in astrophysics and one in biomedical engineering. How fun,” he smiles, waiting patiently for her next question. Rose maintains eye contact while she reaches over and grabs her legal pad, and looks down to flip over the pages until she finds her list of questions. The board she and Dirk used has been erased, transferred to the notebook before anyone could see it and ask questions. ‘Anyone’ referring to her mother.

“You said you were substituting for our cluster’s ‘mother.’ What does that mean?” she asks first, prioritizing the basics before she risks asking anything he might not answer. It’s in her best interest to prolong this conversation for as long as she can, and gather as much information as possible.

“You haven’t figured that out on your own yet? Tsk,” he sighs. “Alright, then. Every cluster of Sensates shares one mother, though mind you that is merely the operational word and does not denote gender. This person is typically an older, experienced Sensate, who psychically passes on their ability to their new children. These children will be born at precisely the same moment, and later in their lives the mother will birth them a second time, awakening them as Sensates.”

“So who is the mother of our cluster, then? A member of your cluster, I presume?” Smug herself now, Rose continues, “I would assume she would have to be, in order for you to visit with us.”

“A correct deduction, Miss Lalonde, well done,” he says, tapping his hands together in a golf clap. Just like that, any satisfaction Rose felt is gone. “Though again, as good with guessing games as you are, it disappoints me you haven’t figured it out yet. I suppose I will have to take pity on you and not torment you any longer.”

“ _ Thank _ you,” she says through gritted teeth, projecting as much disdain as she can into her voice.

“It’s Meenah Piexes. And before you feel so important as being the children of such a world leader, I would inform you that you children are not her first cluster, nor her last.”

Rose stifles any reaction, refusing to give him any satisfaction in the ‘reveal’ that he’s clearly proud of. “So that’s your endgame then? World domination through the birthing of as many clusters as you can?”

“That  _ is _ step one, very good! And because you’ve done so well, I can tell you that step two is garnering  _ control _ over these clusters, her own and any others she comes across. Luckily for us there are only a couple loose ends left in yours, and those are quickly being sewn shut.”

“And what does  _ that _ mean, exactly?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, there are forces at play that you remain quite ignorant of. Now, if that just about wraps up this delightful conversation, I believe you have other business to attend to.”

“Not quite!” Rose says, annoyed, and points back at her notes. “I’m not done yet.”

“I politely disagree, unless you would rather this conversation continue to be eavesdropped on.”

“Excuse me?” Rose asks, and he gestures to her bedroom door. She marches over and opens it abruptly, and finds her mother standing there. Filled with an abrupt anger, she demands, “What are you doing here?!”

“I am making sure that my  _ daughter _ is safe,” she retorts, surprised but ever ready to flip the switch to passive-aggression. “Who are you talking to?”

“A very polite man named Doctor Scratch, not that it’s any of your business. If you don’t mind, you’re interrupting!” Rose says, and her mother’s eyes widen in shock, and a flash of dread that Rose doesn’t have the context for. She’s too angry to care.

“Oh, before I go, Miss Lalonde, I have a question of my own.” Rose spins herself back around from glaring at her mother to look at Scratch again. She cannot tell which Lalonde he is addressing, though she knows her mother cannot hear him. “Where  _ have _ you been hiding all these years?”

“...What?” she asks flatly.

“Rose, what did he say to you?” her mother asks, urgently.

“I wasn’t aware I was hiding,” she ignores her.

“ _ Rose, _ ” she snaps, loud enough to make Rose twitch involuntarily. Scratch grins at them both, and then vanishes. She stifles a groan of her frustration, her rage at this opportunity ripped away from her, and stiffly turns to face her mother again, planting her feet.

“Were we hiding from something, mother?” she asks coldly. “What did you know of this before?”

Her mother looks almost hurt, which is ironic. “We had to, sweetheart. Those people were dangerous.  _ Are _ dangerous.”

“And how is it that you came by this information?” She closes her notebook and tosses it back onto the desk, standing with her arms crossed.

“It’s a complicated story about my old associates. But judging by your tone, I don’t think that now is the time to share it,” she says, taking up a stance in the doorway mirroring Rose’s. “But none of it matters now, because you’ve undone everything I’ve accomplished. You’ve led them right to us, haven’t you?”

“I never told him where I was,” Rose says defensively.

“You don’t have to, darling.” She runs a hand over her face and through her hair. “I’m going to make myself a drink, and figure out what to do now. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Or we can talk about it now!”

She points a finger at Rose. “No. Right now I need to think.” Then she backs up and closes the door, and her footsteps echo down the hallway outside.

Rose throws herself into the chair at her desk, and opens up her notebook once more. She checks off the questions she managed to ask before being cut off, much less than half of them, and starts scribbling down the answers she remembers on the next page before she can risk forgetting them. She’s still seething as she does, but by the end of it she feels like she can rationalize again.

The door swings open and her mother strides into the room, and plucks the notebook from Rose’s desk before she has time to do anything to stop her. With a drink in one hand, she frowns down at the notes, and flips across a few pages.

“Give that back!” Rose demands, affronted. She stands up and tries to grab it, but her mother swings around out of her reach without taking her eyes away from the paper.

She’s still frowning, the expression wrinkling her features that she so meticulously takes care of. “Rose, you should have told me about this sooner.”

“Why would I?” Rose challenges.

“Because contrary to what you may believe, I do actually know what I’m talking about,” she snaps, her eyebrows raised pointedly. “Why do you think that we live in this abysmally small town in the middle of nowhere, where the only school is a private school that practices the wrong faith?”

“You like your privacy? Work related reasons?” Rose crosses her arms, keeping her chin high.

Her mother laughs in a huff, and shakes her head. She perches herself on the edge of Rose’s desk, thumbing through the notebook some more. “I was a scientist studying a brand new form of humans. There was a group of us, keeping our research completely secret. We partnered with both SkaiaNet and the Harley Foundation, if you’ve heard of it.”

“The Harley Foundation?” Rose interrupts. “As in Henry Harley?”

“Yes,” she answers, a sour look on her face. “That one. He funded most of my research, and was the leading scientist in the field. Unfortunately, he had some business practices that I couldn’t abide by.”

“Like what?”

“Arms dealing, for one, to anyone with the money. And his interest in Sensates such as the young Peixies girl didn’t sit well with me. And when you were a few years old, and you started to exhibit the signs, I knew that we had to break off from the entire organization before things could get worse. The next steps they wanted to take in their research were going a bit too far for my taste. ...So, we moved here, and I have taken measures to prevent them from finding us.”

“So you knew Scratch?” Rose asks, filing away the rest to sort in her mind later. “You worked with him?”

She nods. “I did. He directed almost everything that we did, under Meenah, and it was only later that I discovered he was a Sensate as well. This was shortly before we ran. Rose, how do you know of Henry Harley? His business isn’t exactly the most public.”

It seemed like she already knew the answer to that, or at least had a guess. “Jade Harley is in my cluster,” Rose admitted. Her mother nodded, she  _ had _ been expecting that.

“I figured that was too much of a coincidence, you and her being born at the same time.”

“Was it possible your research had something to do with what made me a Sensate? If me, Feferi,  _ and _ Jade are?” If her mother prevented Rose from getting answers from Scratch, the least that she can do is try to answer some herself.

“Ah, yes, from your notes. What makes you a Sensate. Well, even from all our research, we never did find those answers. It seems random, but there are enough of those little coincidences to make me think that it’s not. In any case, it’s much more likely that the biological child of a Sensate would become one herself, such as Feferi.” She sighs. “I always wished we could have taken her with us, rescued her from a childhood of being an experiment. Jade, too.”

“Mmmm,” Rose hums noncommittally, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Because her  _ own _ childhood wasn’t already an experiment in the art of child rearing. Her mother takes another sip of her drink.

“Would you mind answering some questions of my own?” she asks hesitantly, like she’s afraid Rose will say no. She considers it.

“Are you missing your science days?” she asks. “Tired of merely stalking me around the house while you think I don’t notice?”

“Rose,” she reprimands. “Please. My science days never  _ ended _ , only my contact with that organization. Now how did Scratch find you?”

“Unsure. I was going to ask that before you interrupted.” Her mother frowns, and opens her mouth, but Rose clarifies before she can ask. “He simply appeared to me the night of my rebirth. I believe that is what triggered everyone else into awakening.”

“He isn’t your mother, is he?”

“No. That would be Meenah. Nearly as bad, but not quite, I’d assume,” she answers, and her mother shrugs, taking another drink. “Oh, and in case you were concerned, I am reasonably sure that their operatives are working somewhere else, specifically Houston, last time I was aware.” She looks up in interest. “Two members of my cluster have been attacked by a group of assailants. We haven’t yet figured out what they want, though I strongly suspect kidnapping, especially in the light of this information. I’d assume they are part of the loose ends Scratch referred to,” Rose explains.

“Describe the group,” her mother commands.

“Four men, of varying builds,” she shrugs, based on what Jade, Dave, and Dirk described to her.

“The Midnight Crew.” Rose gives her a blank look. “The September 19th cluster, classified based on the day of their shared birth. They served as the muscle, masters of coercion in our organization, and they were known to bring in new Sensates to study, as well as keep everyone in line for Meenah. They’re the ones we’ve needed to watch out for, or they would… They would take you away without hesitation, by any force necessary.”

“Then it is fortunate that neither of my clustermates were taken,” Rose says, easily brushing off the rare show of motherly concern. “I will be sure to warn everyone. And if you’ll excuse me,” she says, moving back over to take back her notebook and sit down at her desk, “I would like to do that now, and inform everyone of what I have learned.”

“Alright,” her mother agrees, though she looks disappointed. “Will you keep me up to date on what’s going on, at least?”

“We’ll discuss it,” Rose says dismissively, not looking up. From her peripheral vision she sees her mother nod, and leave her room, shutting the door behind her. Rose looks up and lets out a deep sigh and slumps in her seat, letting herself relax for the first time since she said Scratch’s name.

####  Part 3: Jade

“So, Jane? How are you feeling?” Jade asks her, two mornings after.

Jane cocks her head and thinks. “...Better. I’ve got a headache.” They’re sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee with Bec sitting on the floor underneath them. Feferi isn’t there, she likes to sleep in. “I think I’m thinking more clearly, now. I’m less distracted.”

Jane has been doing  _ so _ much better! She still hasn’t actually taken off the now-defunct tiaratop, but with Jade’s prodding she’s finally getting some healthy suspicions about both it and her stepmother. Jade knows that she’s kind of only known Jane post-brainwashing, but she can  _ feel _ that Jane wasn’t always like this.

“That’s great!” Jade says. She lets Jane frown at her drink in silence for a bit. She’s quiet, she’s always been kind of quiet, but now it’s more like she’s actually present rather than observing the world at a distance. She’s definitely got a lot to think about, anyways.

But she’s not entirely cured. Not yet. If John’s occasional slips now are any indication, that mind control tech can worm pretty deep into your head, and it’ll probably take a while for Jane to get completely back to normal. So Jade will just have to keep an eye on her, and once she’s far enough along in the healing process, they can start making some plans to escape. Or help Feferi. Ideally, both!

“This coffee is terrible,” Jane remarks, and it’s innocuous until Jade remembers that since they are living in the Betty Crocker house, everything they consume has that special red spoon branding on it. So Jade just beams at her.

And later that afternoon, Jane actually takes her and Feferi to someplace that isn’t the penthouse! It’s been forever since Jade has been allowed outside, especially since she got the news that she wasn’t allowed to leave and was essentially living as a hostage. Man, it feels great to have Jane on her side again, however marginal the process.

“Feferi, how many times have you been to this aquarium?” Jade asks while she’s dragged directly over to the little tank imbedded in the wall that houses the little population of cuttlefish.

“What kind of question is that?” Feferi asks, putting a hand to her chest in shock. “I’ve got to regularly check up on the babies!” She leans in close to the glass, her wide grin reflecting clearly in the glass. It’s super cute, all the enthusiasm she has for her passions.

Jane follows behind them more slowly, looking around with a frown on her face. She looks at the cuttlefish with them, but keeps her distance. Jade keeps an eye on her, and hooks an arm around her elbow when Feferi decides to jubiently pull them all into the next room.

Jade gets the feeling that they’re being watched, and jerks her head around. Coming in from the other side of the room, she sees Mrs. Peixes strolling in like she owns the place. And really, she definitely definitely does. CrockerCorp probably owns everything on this side of Osaka. She walks arm in arm with Jane’s dad.

Jade tenses her grip on Jane, imperceptibly, while Jane’s expression darkens. Feferi does the opposite, letting Jade’s hand go and bouncing over to her mother, leaving them no choice but to follow her.

“Girls, what a crazy coincidence to see you all here!” Mrs. Peixes says. If she hadn’t said that, Jade  _ might _ have believed that this wasn’t planned. “Feferi, since you’re here, would you speak in private with me for a moment?” She waves Feferi closer and puts a hand on her shoulder to lead her away, patting Jane’s dad on the arm with her other hand in a dismissal. “I’ll be right back babe, would you entertain the girls?”

Jane looks uncomfortable, but once Feferi and Mrs. Peixes are out of the room and through an employees only door she relaxes a little bit. Jade does not.

Jane’s dad seems nice enough, though Jade has barely spent any time with him at all. Until Jane is eighteen, he’s running the majority of CrockerCorp, which is a very demanding job, so he’s incredibly busy all the time. Though she does have to remember he’s just as in league with Mrs. Peixes as Jane and Feferi were brainwashed to be. Except he’s here willingly.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Jade asks Jane, still watching the door Feferi disappeared through.

“Probably none to worry about,” Jane’s dad says, smiling and shrugging. “Let’s just enjoy the aquarium!” He nudges them into the next room with a hand on each of their shoulders. He’s a very nice Japanese man, and taller than Jane but a lot shorter than Jade. This of course makes sense seeing as Jade is just a few inches shy of being an entire foot taller than Jane.

“ _ Operation ditch my dad? _ ” Jane asks, and Jade’s eyes widen a second in surprise before she realizes that she didn’t actually say it out loud. Based on what Jade knows of Senate abilities, there’s probably a ton of mechanics going on here that make it possible for them to just flat-out project their thoughts into each other’s heads, but unfortunately she doesn’t have the time to go into the science of it. Ugh, and after all her efforts to correct everybody when they called themselves psychics instead of Sensates. It’s not superpowers, people! It’s genetics! Science!  _ Way _ more complicated than just being psychic!

Jade nods, grinning. “ _ Absolutely _ .” He trails behind them while they drift through the next room, a long hallway with exhibits absolutely filled with different kinds of fish. It’s admittedly not as fun without Feferi and her contagious excitement, but from an anthropology standpoint it’s still interesting. Jane barely glances at anything, but can navigate the aquarium with the ease of someone dragged through it a million times before.

Well, this trip got awkward very fast, Jade hadn’t realized how much of their socializing depended on Feferi and her constant stream of chatter. And neither of them have any plan to ditch Mr. Crocker.

“ _ How is John? _ ” Jane asks, silently.

“ _ Um, he’s fine, I’m pretty sure! We’ve been keeping an eye on him! _ ” They stop in front of a big glass wall, behind it some of the larger fish and an occasional shark swim by. Jade pretends to read the plaque next to it.

“ _ I think that my stepmother’s men are still preoccupied in Houston, but he should be careful. It isn’t good that he’s gained her attention _ ,” she warns. “ _ Especially since she got into his head. _ ”

Jade nods. “ _ You should tell him that, _ ” she suggests. Jane just shrugs in response. “ _ No, really, you’ve barely talked to any of the cluster for ages! _ ”

Jane glances over at her. “ _ Yes, well, there’s a reason for that. First and foremost that the tiaratops affect Sensate abilities. I’m fairly sure that Feferi can’t use them at all anymore. _ ”

Jade tilts her head to the side, frowning. She can double check that, if she just focuses on Feferi. It’s weird that she’s never tried before, but it also makes sense because why would she ever visit with Feferi when she’s right there in person? And nobody else she knows is connected to her.

While she thinks of Feferi nothing happens. Jade’s thoughts stray to Mrs. Peixes, in the room with Feferi, and once she does that she finally finds herself in the room with the two of them, Jane and Mr. Crocker fading to the back of her awareness.

“Feferi!” Jade says impulsively, relieved to have done it.

Feferi doesn’t acknowledge her presence, but Mrs. Peixes turns to her with a scowl and says “Scram, kid.”

Jade feels like she’s been bodily knocked backwards, the connection very suddenly and completely gone, and she comes back to herself and sees Jane looking at her with concern. Hey, more progress! An emotion that isn’t disdain! “Jade? Are you okay?” she asks.

While her brain tries to collect itself back together, something about being so abruptly shut down really getting to her, Mr. Crocker puts a hand on her forehead. Turning to Jane, he says, “Maybe we should take her home.”

“Maybe,” Jane nods. “If that’s what she wants.” Jade finally gets her bearings back and shrugs at her.

“That might be good,” she agrees. She wasn’t really feeling the aquarium anyways. Privately, she adds, “ _ I think you’re right about Feferi. _ ”

Jane takes her arm once more and follows her dad back through the rooms and hallways. Jade repeats herself, trying to project herself louder this time, “ _ Jane? I couldn’t connect to Feferi. _ ”

“ _ I thought that would be the case _ ,” Jane frowns. “ _ Do you think Roxy can fix her? _ ”

“ _ The technology? Yes, but not without more suspicion, and I don’t know that it would help her abilities come back _ .  _...But we can make a plan. _ ”

Later that night Jade is awake at around one AM, for no reason, of course. She’s sitting in the kitchen downstairs from the bedrooms, on the countertop, making herself something hot to drink while Bec sleeps on the floor at her feet. It’s been a very long couple weeks of what is essentially captivity for the two of them. And due to a number of reasons, her sleep schedule is out of tune, which means it’ll be more spontaneous naps than her usual rate of two or three per day. So, hot chocolate, time with her dog, and some peace and quiet is in order.

It’s really quiet at night here, more than she thought it would be. Even though the city seems perpetually busy, the penthouse is on the outskirts of downtown, and this high up the noises of traffic down below fade away. It’s way more than she’s used to, living in isolation on the coast of an island.

And for once, she’s completely alone in her head. These quiet moments are hard to come by recently. Alone with her thoughts, great, yes…

She almost sighs with relief when she hears another person coming down the stairs. Almost. She has to revoke her relief when she realizes it’s Mrs. Peixes. She wears a silk dressing gown, and magenta slippers. Her hair is piled on top of her head. Though they’re both just in pajamas, Jade somehow feels underdressed in a t-shirt and shorts. She takes a sip of her hot chocolate and waits to be noticed, sending Jane a quick text on her phone.

Mrs. Peixes looks up as she enters the kitchen and her lip curls, and curls even more when she notices Bec, too. “Harley Junior. Great ta’ see ya skulkin’ around my place.” She opens the fridge and pulls out a whole little container of sushi.

“It’s not my choice to be here, Mrs. Peixes!” Jade cheerfully replies. She hops down from the counter, gathering her things to go. Bec pops his head up, looking over at Mrs. Peixes.

She turns to Jade, snaps her fingers and then points one down. “Nah, sit back down. Let’s talk some shop.” She herself sits down on a stool at the island in the center of the huge industrial status kitchen. Jade hesitantly leans back against the counter and takes another sip of her drink, and at her cue Bec lays his head down again, though he keeps his eyes open. Just talking, right? That should be okay. Mrs. Peixes nods and begins, “If you could stop fucking with the tech I’ve put a good few million dollars into, that’d be great.”

Jade’s first instinct is to apologize, based on her tone, but she doesn’t feel even remotely sorry. “That’s… a shame,” she says.

Mrs. Peixes looks her dead in the eyes, and points to her with her chopsticks. “Nah, kid, I’m serious. You’re here so I can keep an eye on ya, no other reason. I’ve got other methods to keep ya outta the way, if that’s what it comes down to. Don’t interfere with my plans again, last warning.”

“Then what? Are you going to put me under mind control like you did with Feferi and Jane?” Jade challenges. Bec sits up at attention next to her in solidarity.

“What, do I  _ look  _ like I’m made of money, kid?” Mrs. Peixes asks, nonplussed as she eats.

“Um, yeah! Kinda! You bought out  _ Disney _ , another tiaratop is entirely in the realm of possibility!” Jade retorts.

She considers that. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Still not gonna change the fact I’m not gettin’ one for ya, no matter what happens. Nah, you’ll just get plain ol’ lobotomized.”

“...What?”

"Yeah! It's something we can do with Sensates around here, 'specially the ones who've lost their use," she says, not even looking at Jade in favor of grimacing down at a hangnail. “So let’s not let it come to that, yeah?”

Jade doesn’t respond, disturbed. She’s not quite exactly sure what being lobotomized means in the context of Sensates, but wow, she really doesn’t want the details on this one. She sets the mug back on the counter next to her, feeling a little nauseous.

Mrs. Peixes at least seems satisfied, staring down at her phone now. Then she gets an alert on her phone, and her expression turns murderous. Her eyes snap up to Jade. “The fuck did I  _ just  _ tell you?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jade says, though she does have an idea, a pretty good guess, on what she’s talking about.

####  Part 4: Jane

Jane gets a thumbs up emoji in a text from Jade, and slips out of her bed, mentally calling out to Roxy, who appears within seconds.

“Jade is distracting my step-mother while she gets her midnight snack, we need to help Feferi. If… if that’s alright with you,” Jane explains, unsure of herself. She hasn’t talked to Roxy much at all, or any of her cluster. She doesn’t know where she stands with them. A large part of her still considers them just as obstacles in her way.

“Hell yeah!” Roxy responds, and Jane can relax. “The sooner we can do something about you and her and Jade being here, the better.” Jane nods and smiles, and tip toes out of her room and down the hallway, where Feferi sleeps with her door cracked open.

“I thought we should try it while she sleeps,” Jane whispers as they creep into the room. Feferi’s room is dark, the walls painted dark blue looking nearly black and Feferi herself is a barely intelligible mass curled up in the middle of a king sized bed. Clothing litters the floor, but nothing else beyond that.

Roxy looks down at the sleeping Feferi, considering. “Well, we can’t hack into it again, not like we did with yours.  _ She _ would find out immediately, and then we’d be so absolutely screwed and so would Feferi. Even just plugging in something might set of some alarms, if she got smart about it and decided to up her security.”

“So what do we do?” Jane asks.

“Fuck it,” Roxy shrugs. “Just take it and break it. Snap it in half with those beefy arms.” She pats Jane on the shoulder.

Jane looks at Roxy for a moment and then shrugs too. She pulls the tiaratop off of Feferi’s head in a quick motion, and then snaps the thing over her knee, the metal bits around where it breaks shattering into little pieces. Irreparable.

The second after she does, she hears sharp voices from downstairs, and Feferi blinks open her eyes, making confused noises. Jane puts a finger to her lips when Feferi looks at her, and gestures for her to follow and pulls her gently out of the bed.

Feferi resists her, and looks down to the floor, where Jane is carefully navigating her around the shards of golden metal digging their way into the carpet. “Did you… Break my tiaratop?” she asks in disbelief. Her disbelief quickly turns to anger. “Jane! That was a  _ birthday _ gift from my  _ mother _ !”

Jane looks down at the wreckage and suddenly blinks in horror as it dawns on her the gravity of what she’s done. “Oh… Oh, no, you’re right, Feferi, what  _ have _ I done?” She bends down and starts gathering the little pieces into her hands. “Maybe we can fix it…? I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking!” Feferi crouches down with her to help.

Roxy grabs Jane’s arm and yanks her upright, giving her a hard look. Jane had forgotten she was there. She snaps her fingers in front of her eyes, “Jane. Stay with me girl, don’t go all brainwashed again.”

“Roxy?” Jane asks, frowning. She drops what she’s holding and takes a deep breath. “Sorry. Come on, Feferi, we need to get going.” She takes Feferi’s hand and pulls her away.

“Jane, what are you talking about?” Feferi says, scowling. “Why are you acting so crazy?”

“We need to get out, it’s dangerous here,” Jane responds, using up half of her willpower to say so. Roxy gives her a concerned look while she forces the words out.

Feferi looks confused, but she’s disoriented enough that she doesn’t protest again when Jane tugs her out into the hallway, snatching Feferi’s wallet off of her desk for good measure, and then leading the way back into her own room. She grabs a large travel backpack and pulls it over her shoulders, and picks up Jade’s heavy duffel bag as well.

“You planned this?” Feferi asks, as Jane puts her wallet into a pocket of the backpack.

“...Had to,” Jane says, trying not to second guess herself and keep moving.

“I can’t feel Jade anymore,” Roxy widens her eyes to her right. They hear stomping up the stairs, before any of them can react, and the door throws itself open.

“The  _ fuck,  _ Jane?!” Meenah says, stomping her foot on the ground and putting her hands on her hips. “Just gonna up an’ leave me?” Her eyes slide to Roxy and she narrows them. “Oh.  _ You _ . I see how it is, corruptin’ my girls. Get outta here.” She flicks her hand and Roxy disappears. Well, shit, there goes Jane’s last shred of control.

“Where is Jade?” Jane asks, her link to her gone, just as Roxy said before she vanished. Maybe if she focuses on Jade she can stop herself from slipping again.

“Downstairs, sleepin’. Had another bought of narcolepsy, you know how she is.” Jane eyes her with suspicion but that is something that Jade does, so, it’s plausible. That, or she’s still finding it hard to question anything that Meenah says.

“I should go check on her!” Feferi says in concern, and hurries out of the room.

Meenah groans and turns to go after her, and Jane follows closely behind. Meenah mutters to herself, just barely audible ahead of Jane, “Why I thought having twenty- no, shit, twenty- _ two _ whole ass fuckin’ kids is  _ beyond  _ me. Coulda stopped at the  _ one _ , she was plenty a’ trouble on her own. God  _ dammit _ .”

They get to the bottom of the stairs and find Feferi helping Jade up off of the linoleum floor. “Did you hit your head?” Feferi asks, concerned, eyeing the countertops and sharp corners surrounding them both. Bec is standing pointed at Meenah with his teeth bared, and looks just on the verge of growling at her.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jade says, and catches sight of Meenah and Jane at the bottom of the stairs. “She shoved me out of her brain again. It’s very disorienting!”

“You’re goddamn right I did, y’all are a fucking nightmare,” Meenah snaps.

“Then you’ll be glad to know we’re leaving,” Jane says, keeping close to their only exit rather than going to group up with the others.

For a long moment, Meenah turns and stares into Jane’s eyes, daring her to back down from her blatant challenge. It’s more than long enough to make Jane sweat. But eventually, Meenah flips her hand and says, “Fine. What do I care? Two less brats to look after, and it’s not even my fault this time. Gets rid of the dumb mutt, too.”

Jade skirts around Meenah at a distance so that she stands with Jane, Bec following loyally at a close distance, and takes her duffel bag from her. But Feferi hesitates. “Feferi?” Jade asks, nervous.

“Well, you goin’ too?” Meenah asks. “Time to make a choice, kid.” Feferi glances between her and Jade, and nods, once hesitantly and a second time with a set determination, walking decisively across the room. Meenah laughs. “Good luck then, see y’all never, if you’re lucky. I’m going back to bed.”

Jade pulls Feferi into a half-hug, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing, and Jane wastes no time to let Meenah change her mind. She takes charge and leads them to the foyer, where they get into the elevator and anxiously waits for the doors to close. Jane holds her breath for nine floors.

They leave the building, it’s three in the morning, only Jane is actually dressed in anything besides pajamas, and Feferi has nothing but her wallet, which rests in Jane’s custody as a precaution. Between the three of them, they’ve got one backpack and one duffel bag. Two of them are under a vague form of mind-control at varying levels, and the third is recovering from her head being shoved around all day. Feferi’s not even wearing  _ shoes _ , not that she minds much.

“Um, where are we going?” Feferi asks, halfway down the block. She jogs to catch up a few steps to Jane, who’s leading the group and not looking back.

“First, somewhere to change. I packed you some clothes, but we can buy anything else we need. Then...” she looks to Jade, allowing her to finish that sentence.

“We were going to go back to my Grandpa’s research facility on the island,” Jade says. “But we weren’t actually sure we were going to escape, so… That’s a very loose plan.”

“We should go to Greece!” Feferi suggests. Jade looks at her in surprise. “Yes! It’s where I’m from, and I know that we’ll be safe there! Safer than with your grandpa, anyways, no offense Jade. But he’s the one who left you here, and he’s definitely working with our mother. Right, Jane?”

Jane thinks about it, but doesn’t stop walking. “...Maybe. Let’s take it one step at a time for now.”

Even despite the late hour, the streets feel alive. They’re in the wealthier section of the city, and everything is lit up with neon signs and advertisements, and on every block there are people stumbling around after a night in the dance clubs, wearing fur coats and golden jewelry. Honestly, the three of them only look a little bit out of place. It really helps that two out of three of them literally  _ own _ these streets.

Jade has been fiddling around on her phone, twisting her hair around her fingers in her free hand as her eyes flash back and forth behind her glasses. Feferi peers over her shoulder as best as she can while walking next to her, and Jane essentially ignores them while she walks the group to a place where they can change clothes and come up with a real strategy. She doesn’t want to go into any of the ritzy clubs where everyone knows exactly who they are, and are most definitely friends of her step-mother as well. So, a twenty-four hour convenience store will have to work.

Feferi and Jade take turns in the single-stall bathroom while Jane stands watch outside with Bec, now outfitted with a leash they fished out of the duffel bag. Above her a fluorescent light flickers, while in the store proper, a too-bored-to-be-suspicious cashier keeps an eye on her. It makes her really uneasy that they got away so easily, predominantly due to the fact that last time Feferi ran away, it made world-wide news and there were search parties all over the globe before they eventually found her in Argentina. It had been excellent press coverage for Jane, and her movement towards inheriting the brand.

And then Roxy is there, tackling her into a hug that would have knocked her over had it been physically real. “Jane! It’s working again! I was so worried, but it looks like you… Well, you’re in a corner store. So I assume you made it out? And Feferi, too!” She acknowledges Feferi next to her as she meets Jane outside, and then Roxy looks around into the store, probably going through the same thought process Jane was. None of them had expected to make it out tonight. But, their alternative was waiting for Meenah to strike back against them. This way at least the confrontation was on their own terms.

“Yes, against all odds,” Jane shrugs. Feferi turns and looks at her curiously. “Jade is putting on real clothes in there,” she gestures to the bathroom on the other side.

“Who’s that?” Feferi asks.

“Roxy,” Jane answers, and she nods in understanding. She hadn’t really thought about it before, naturally, but in hindsight, it was definitely very unfortunate that she gave her and Meenah so much information on her cluster. It would have been worse if she’d actually talked to them, and known them beyond a surface level, so Jane thanks herself and her deeply subconscious safety measures for not letting her be as bad as she could have been.

“What happened after I got slam dunked out of there?” Roxy asks.

“She just… she let us go,” Jane frowns. “Said we weren’t worth the trouble anymore.”

Jade emerges from the store freshly dressed in a purple fleece jacket and denim capris, and takes the leash from Jane. Not that Bec really needs a leash. “And that was  _ after _ she threatened me!”

“I didn’t hear that part,” Jane says, also realizing that she didn’t hear  _ any  _ of the details of what Meenah and Jade discussed, as part of their distraction.

Jade frowns, “We probably shouldn’t talk about this here, right?” Jane agrees, and she leads them away and back into the noise, as they start walking again to put some distance between them and the CrockerCorp tower. Jade talks in a lowered voice, “Yeah… Um, she said something about lobotomy. I don’t know what that means for us, but she said it was what she did to Sensates that weren’t useful to her anymore. And that’s definitely the three of us, at this point. She wouldn’t have let us go otherwise, ...right?”

“I don’t like this,” Jane says. The other three nod their heads in agreement. “But whatever. Jade, plans?”

“I think we could go to Greece like Feferi said. I have a private jet I can call in, too, and if we use that we might be able to imply that we’re going back to Indonesia, like we originally thought.”

“Right. I guess that’s a better idea than using one of mine or Feferi’s jets, so how soon can we get that here?” Jane agrees, while Roxy makes a face of disgust at all of them.

“I’ve been making arrangements!” Jade says, brandishing her phone again. “Feferi, where exactly in Greece?”

“Heraklion!” she answers. “Though I’ll warn you, it’s a really  _ really _ long flight, so we’ll definitely have to make a stop somewhere. It usually takes me a couple of days, but that’s just because I use it as a sight-seeing opportunity. ...If we cut out all that, and just take a direct flight with maybe one stop, we could probably get there in maybe seventeen hours.”

Jane contemplates that long being in a confined space with these two, and has to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment to stifle herself before she can express her feelings on it. Finally she sighs. “We don’t have a choice. Going to Indonesia is too dangerous, and we don’t have anywhere else. ...Do we?”

Feferi thinks. “I had a clustermate in India, but she’s not there anymore, she… Well, she would have hidden us, but she was one of the first to go so I wouldn’t exactly call that secure! And there was a guy up in Russia, but he probably doesn’t like me anymore. We should probably just go to Greece.”

“So, nothing. Very helpful.”

“What about Jake?” Jade asks. Jane looks at her in surprise, and then Roxy starts nodding vigorously.

“That’s a great idea! He’s got his whole little underground bunker thing and-”

“No! We can’t go there,” Feferi unintentionally interrupts, not able to hear Roxy. “I think we should go to Greece. That’s way too obvious, and the Midnight Crew’ve already found him, right? So we shouldn’t put him in even more danger!”

“Feferi, they  _ failed _ . And they’re in the States now, Jake is probably much more secure than any of our other options.” Jane argues. 

Feferi looks almost angry for a second, but then calms down and is quiet for a few moments. She hums to herself, “Fine, that might work… But what if Jade comes with me, and you go to your clustermate? I still think Greece is the clear choice, but we can’t really afford to be wrong. At least this way she can’t get all of us.”

_ She can _ , Jane thinks to herself.  _ She almost has, a few times _ . But it still might work, if only to slow her down. And if Jake is taking the offensive, then she’s been waiting to join that push against her step-mother for years now. “Jade? Roxy? What do you think?”

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” Roxy nods, shrugging.

Jade is watching Feferi. “It’s an interesting idea,” she starts. “...And I don’t see a lot of options.”

Jane nods and pulls out her phone to begin arranging for her own flight, while Feferi goes through Jane’s backpack and takes the things she had packed for her to transfer them into Jade’s duffel bag.

“Should we tell Jake?” Roxy asks. By now Jane has deduced that tonight at least she is scared to break contact with her and Jade, and so sticks around out of worry for the three of them. Jane appreciates it the additional support just in case they need another common sense filter to offset the brainwashing. They can’t afford to let Jade miss anything on her own.

“Can’t risk it, not until I’m close enough that it’s safe.” Jane shrugs. “I’m going to try to get out of here without anyone noticing. We’ll have to keep him on a need-to-know basis.”

####  Part 5: Dave

“Listen, my life isn’t your problem,” Dave says irritably. “My ‘ _ relationship _ ’ with my brother none of your business.” He makes air quotes around ‘relationship,’ mocking the clinical tone she had used.

“It’s not just that,  _ David _ ,” Rose says, equally hostile, eyes narrowed. “The Midnight Crew knows where you are, and they said they would come back. It’s not safe for you to stay here. My mother’s been hiding me for years, she can shield you too, even though I am loathe to ask her for any kind of help. We’ll just both have to do things we aren’t comfortable with.”

“My name’s not David.”

“ _ Dave _ , look at me.” He’s not one to back down from an obvious challenge, so he obliges. She points at the left side of his jaw. “That’s a new bruise.” He pushes her finger away from his face, and she moves down to where his shirt doesn’t cover his collarbone. “That one too. And I’m willing to bet there’s more, but the marks on your arms are old. But not old enough that it wasn’t recently. Some of them, at least.”

“Anything else, Holmes? Maybe something I don’t already know?”

Rose rolls her eyes, unnecessarily over-exaggerating the movement. “Just at least consider it. Okay? If not for my sake, the sake of the cluster. We feel what you feel, remember? Not everyone’s as tough as you and I.”

Dave snorts. “The fuck are you talking about, I bet you’ve never been in a fight in your entire life.”

“I don’t know, I can be decently deadly with my knitting needles if I need to be.”

Dave’s about to comeback with a really witty and absolutely devastating retort but then a new person appears next to him in a burst of panicked energy. Dave holds back his instinct to flinch, but Rose can sense his surprise, he guesses.

“What is it?” she asks, looking around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary beyond the fact that she’s only a mental projection. That will never count as ordinary.

“Karkat’s here,” Dave says, confused.

“Yeah, Karkat  _ is _ here!” Karkat agrees, looking annoyed already. “Thanks for the welcome.”

“Good,” Rose says. “Maybe he can argue my point for me.”

“Or maybe he’ll agree with  _ me _ ,” he says. “Karkat, my clustermate says that my home life is ‘detrimental to my mental and physical-’”

“Oh, my god, shut up. I actually have something important to say!” Karkat interrupts. “And whoever it is is a hundred percent right, and that’s coming from  _ me _ and  _ my _ fucked up family, but that is extremely not the most important thing to be talking about right now.”

“Then spit it out, dude,” Dave says. He can feel Karkat’s frantic energy, while Rose watches and presumably tries to piece together what Karkat is talking about, since the two cannot see each other.

“They’re coming for you,” Karkat says, and when Dave levels him a blank stare, he slaps a hand onto his face. “The fucking Mightnight Crew, who the fuck else would I be talking about!? And they’re prepared this time, so either you need to get the fuck out of Dodge or do something to throw them off. I can’t really help directly but if there’s something I can do I’ll do it.”

“Oh, shit, really? Like right now?” he asks.

“Yes!”

“What’s happening?” Rose asks.

“Apparently I’m under attack from the MC as we speak, or I’m about to be,” Dave answers calmly.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why can’t you take anything seriously?” Karkat demands.

“And be in hysterics like you? Nah, I’m good,” he shrugs. He grabs his shoes and starts pulling them on, casual like, as Karkat closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he claps his hands together and points them at Dave, wordlessly.

“He’s right, Dave, you should take preventative measures immediately,” Rose advises.

“How can he be right if you don’t know what he’s saying?”

“Because by now I’ve learned you’re a stubborn child and are prone to resisting others’ help. If you do not want to do something, it can only be what’s good for you,” she explains, a smug look on her face. Dave rolls his eyes hard enough that he’s sure she can see them behind the shades.

Rose vanishes, and Karkat shoves at Dave, but he doesn’t feel that at all. That’s probably something to do with Karkat being outside of his cluster, but for all his feigned nonchalance he still knows that now’s not the time to experiment with Sensate shit. It’s go time. Dave nods and begrudgingly gets to his feet, and grabs a sword as he leaves his room.

“Where’s your brother?” Karkat asks, following him.

“Gone, I’ll shoot him a text.” Dave does so, and has to dodge a tripwire in the hallway. Karkat’s lucky, he walks straight through it and nothing happens to him. He peeks around the corner before emerging into the main room of the apartment, and sees several items on the floor that are very possibly smuppet-themed landmines. He takes care to dodge all of them, and eventually makes it to the front door. Before he opens it, he asks, “Where am I going?”

“Not here,” Karkat shrugs. “They’re still a couple minutes away, but they’re closing in fast.”

"Real quick, again, how do you know this?" Dave asks. He peeks into Karkat's world, but he's just sitting on a hotel room bed, with his laptop out and it looks like google maps or something open. There's a dot moving its way through the streets, and like Karkat said, the dot's making a beeline for the apartment, assuming that’s the MC he’s somehow tracking. There's also a woman sitting on the other bed in the room, her hair wrapped up in a pastel scarf while she's watching TV and tapping her leg nervously in between checking her phone.

Karkat chooses not to answer his question verbally, just gesturing to the computer when he notices Dave looking. Which is so not an answer, but it can wait. By this point they're down the first few flights of stairs, and Karkat's running with him for some reason, his swearing providing a nonstop noise that fades into the background. The elevator's been broken for years, by this point.

"Your apartment’s gonna get fucked up, just so you know," Karkat comments when they're near the bottom. Dave comes to a dead stop, in light of this incredibly critical information that he absolutely should have gotten sooner.

"Wait, hold the phone, how do we get them to not do that?" he asks, taking a pause on the landing and pulling out his phone. Bro says he's on his way, which he  _ guesses  _ is reassuring, but it'll be another ass kicking if he leads these guys to the apartment again.

"It would buy you a lot of extra time," Karkat points out, frowning. "...Unless they somehow see you leaving, and then in another fucking miracle you don't get caught."

"Then I'll just time it perfectly," he says, letting Bro know the MC will be on them almost the second he gets here. “Who’s the chick, by the way?” he asks while he runs down the last few flights.

“That’s my mom, fuck off,” Karkat says, an edge in his voice, like Dave’s gonna judge him or something idiotic.

“Okay, whatever,” Dave rolls his eyes. “Touchy. How much time left?” He approaches the door leading outside of the building, and carefully peers outside, then checks the new message from Bro.

“Um. None,” Karkat says, and they open the door and run out to the sidewalk bordering the street. There’s a van careening around the corner a couple blocks away, and Dave gives a salute to the driver before sprinting across the street and into the next alleyway. There’s not a great place for a fight anywhere nearby, but there is a construction a few streets over, where Bro’s text instructs him to meet up at.

Dave glances over his shoulder and sees Karkat staying back, at the right place to look around the corner and see how far the van is. By the pure panic Karkat sends over a few seconds later, it’s not far at all. He keeps running, katana in hand, probably a sight to see for anyone in the area. It’s not even dark out yet. It’s like six at night. This is ridiculous.

He makes it to the construction site, where the workers have only just left, and there’s still a couple packing up the last of the equipment. Dave vaults the low border fence and sprints past them.

“Hey, kid!” One of them shouts, making a grab, but he catches nothing but air. Dave ducks behind a half finished wall and turns to watch. He sees the black van pull to a stop just outside the gate, and three men step out. One stays in the driver’s seat, the smallest one. The others have weapons drawn, guns and an infinite arsenal of knives. The construction guy that tried to grab Dave spins around and says, “Hey! You can’t be here!”

Without hesitation the tallest Midnight Crew member draws his gun and fires, striking the man in the shoulder and dropping him to the ground. The second civilian turns and runs away, and the gang apparently doesn’t seem to care enough to bother going after him.

Dave shields himself behind the wall again and starts moving alongside it, away from all that. He’d rather  _ not _ get shot today, thank you very much. But he’s also pretty sure that he can’t beat them by himself. Not without getting very creative.

He spots Bro perched up on a landing platform on top of half-finished walls, the setting sun glinting off his shades. As soon as Dave sees him, he vanishes. Dave starts heading that way, and soon he reaches a ladder and starts climbing as quietly as he can with one hand, up onto the platform where he saw Bro. Once he pulls himself over the ledge he lays flat on his stomach, surveying the scene from above. The three have spread out, looking for him in a fan. They aren’t looking up, yet, which is their own mistake.

“When I’m fighting them, you need to get lost,” Bro’s voice says next to him, out of thin air. Dave shoots a look to his right, and gives a confused non-expression.

“What?” he asks.

“Get out of town,  _ now. _ Don’t go back to the apartment until I’ve handled this,” Bro says, not looking back at him.

“When will that be?”

“I’ll find you.” That does the opposite of reassure Dave, because it sounded more like a threat than a promise. The promise of a threat. “ _ Now _ .”

Bro disappears in a flash and then reappears on top of the tall guy, swinging downward with all his strength. The man would have gotten cleanly cut in half if he hadn’t put up a rifle in return, and blocked the blade. That takes the attention of him and the angry guy with all the knives. But the third large man is coming closer to the platform where Dave hides, so he needs to make a move and take at least some of the heat off of Bro, before he can do what he’s told.  _ If _ he does what he’s told.

Dave shares a glance with Karkat, who’s frowning heavily. Sensing no help on that front Dave reaches for a toolkit hanging up next to him, and he quietly shimmies over to the side to open it up. There’s a lock on it but it’s a shitty one so after some fiddling it pops right open. Hey, they tried. There’s some stuff in there, not a lot of any use to him. The hefty wrench catches his eye. He holds that in the hand that isn’t gripping a sword.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Karkat asks, right by the side of his head, and Dave gestures to the wrench.

“Gonna throw it at them if they try to get up,” he mutters to himself very quietly. “Not a lot I can do from here.”

“That isn’t going to do shit,” Karkat frowns.

“I can’t just run away without a fight.”

“Uh, yeah, you can!” Dave ignores this and looks back down, where the big guy stands right below him, and raises the wrench. Glancing up to keep track of the other ones fighting with Bro, he sees the shorter angry one staring directly at him between deflecting sword strikes, and they make eye contact before he leans into the radio in his hands.

Right below him Dave hears, “Heads up, Hearts.” A moment later the guy below him looks directly up at him. They pause for a moment, and then Dave pulls back his arm and lets gravity do most of the work in beaning the guy right on the noggin.

“Motherfuck,” the guy swears. Hearts? Is his name Hearts? That’s stupid. But Dave takes advantage of the momentary distraction to get to his feet and scramble down the ladder on the other side of the platform, skipping rungs and dropping the majority of the way. He hasn’t figured out what comes next after that.

His only choice, other than flat out running, is to get the drop on them, especially before they’ve had the chance to regroup on him and Bro. So he circles around the wall and immediately launches himself at Hearts sword first.

“Fuck,” Hearts says, his radio knocked out of his hands by the flat of the blade. Dave slashes again, and Hearts lunges backward, somehow keeping his balance, but he’s forced to keep backing away and dodging Dave’s sword, without a weapon to retaliate with. Hearts tries to circle and catch Dave at the side, but Dave’s a hell of a lot faster than him and he just adjusts course and keeps him at least a sword-length away.

Shots ring out behind him and Dave instinctively turns to the sound, realizing that he’s been herded back towards the others. Bro is still moving, but he’s rushing back towards Dave and he only registers that a moment before Bro grabs a hold of his arm and bodily hauls him back towards the fence, giving a shove that leaves him skidding across the gravel.

“I  _ said _ get lost. I’ve got this,” Bro commands. There’s another loud bang and Dave whips around to see the last MC member, the short dude, throws himself out of the van as smoke rises from the back half of it. He’s brandishing his club, and quickly running in to pin Dave and Bro between him and the other three.

“Really? We just got that fixed,” the tallest guy sighs, suddenly only steps behind Bro, looking disapprovingly at the van while his hands mess with the gun, reloading it after the one bullet he shot. “Be a good sport and get in anyway?”

Bro spins around and makes a broad slash of his sword, and there’s a loud splitting noise as the barrel of the rifle gets bent at a ninety degree angle before it snaps off entirely. Now down a weapon, he snarls and bares his teeth at the two of them.

Then Bro spins back to Dave and for a second he thinks it’s with the sword brandished, but Bro shoves him with a weaponless hand once again. He gets the sense he won’t be asked so kindly again, so Dave gives a curt nod and turns and runs.

A few blocks away he has to stop to catch his breath. “Karkat,” he says out loud.

“Yeah?” Karkat asks. He’s been there the whole time, just quiet. Keeping tabs on things.

“Got any ideas?”

“Do what you’re told, numbnuts. I can probably get you a bus ticket,” he supplies. “And I can make sure you get to the station. Where do you want to go?”

“I can’t just leave,” Dave says.

“ _ Yeah _ , you  _ can _ , dumbass. It’s probably for the best anyway.”

He thinks for a second, looking back the way he came and then in the other direction to the apartment he’s been banished from. Always knew that was gonna happen sooner or later. “Are you close to the apartment?”

“Extremely.” Dave looks out the window in Karkat’s hotel room, where he has not left, and sees that he is indeed staying in the Super 8 motel down the street.

“Go get my bag. It’s already packed, just throw my laptop in, would you?”

“Why do you have a packed bag all ready to go?” Karkat asks suspiciously.

“Just do it! I’ll meet you at the bus station.”

Karkat nods and disappears, and Dave starts running again. He’s probably got a good head start on the MC, and Bro for that matter, but his problems have multiplied.

Jesus Christ on a motorboat, the sudden thought occurs to him that he’ll have to talk to Rose again. And worse, tell her that she was right and that he might possibly, perhaps maybe, need some of her offered assistance after all. He groans and almost has to stop to lament all of his woes in one fell swoop, collapsed on the burning pavement. But if he does that he’ll never start get up again, so he doesn’t and keeps moving, slowing from a dead run to a quick walking pace.

####  Part 6: Dirk

Dirk has been keeping an eye on Jane as best as he can, and what he definitely isn’t going to do is let her just implant herself into the base of their operations to combat the Condesce. Not without a thorough assessment of the situation at hand.

He catches her on the long transcontinental flight over, when she’s alone besides a single flight attendant and a pilot, miles above the ocean in mid-morning light. “Jane. Have you thought this through?” he asks.

Jane leans her head backwards in her seat and closes her eyes. “I haven't really had the chance.”

“You need to be sure that by being there you aren’t putting everyone in more danger. Do you trust yourself enough to know when your thoughts are your own yet, Jane?”

“What is this, an interrogation? Do you need to make sure I’m worthy to see your precious daughter?” Jane asks, looking at him through one eye. “Dirk, we were running low on options. If I go to Jake, and Feferi and Jade go to Greece together, then at least we can’t all mess up. The damage is limited.”

“I can’t believe you trust Feferi that much. That alone is suspicious.”

“I trust  _ Jade _ . She can take care of herself.”

That is a fair point. Based on the evidence they have, Jade can indeed take care of herself, as she has shown in the past few weeks of being held by the enemy. Again, though, he’ll keep a close eye on her. Dirk settles himself into a chair diagonal from Jane, facing her and making an attempt to judge how tight her self-control is. She wears the same steely expression that serves as her default, both pre- and post-brainwashing.

“Alright, fair,” Dirk says. He puts his hands together in his lap. “But you didn’t answer my question. Do you trust  _ yourself _ ?”

“...Not yet. No.” She chooses to look out the window now rather than at him. Truthfully, her upfront sincerity surprises him. “Every minute I’m out here I feel this urge to order this plane be turned around and go back to my step-mother. Every word against her still feels like blasphemy, even though I’ve thought much more terrible things about her before. Nobody hated the Betty Crocker brand more than I did.” Even while she says this her face cringes and her grip on the fabric of her pants tightens.

“And you think being around Jake will help?”

“As an alternative to what I’ve  _ been _ around? Absolutely. Can’t go anywhere but up.” She makes another good point.

“If you disagree with Jake on something, promise that you’ll trust him on it. I know he’s Jake, but at least he isn’t fighting off the aftereffects of mind control. Check yourself. If you feel like you’re slipping get a second opinion.”

Jane looks at him, for the first time in a while, with one eyebrow raised in amusement. “You’re not the boss of me, or of the cluster, you know. I planned to do all that anyway.” Dirk shrugs. She laughs and rolls her eyes, and makes a shoo-ing motion with her hands. “Go be a mother hen somewhere else, now, go on.”

He does so. Somewhere else is John, the other member of the 'Varying Levels of Brainwashed' crew that Dirk has taken upon himself to look after. As he told Jane, he trusts Jade, and he can let her handle Feferi for the time being. As far as he’s concerned, she’s out of his jurisdiction.

The first thing he says to John is, "I'm thinking about taking up baking, just picked up some Super Moist chocolate cake. BC branding of course."

John nods sagely. "Seems like a wise decision." Dirk narrows his eyes imperceptibly and John maintains a straight face for just long enough that Dirk is about to sound a cautionary alarm to the rest of the group before he breaks out into a grin. "Just messing with you, dude! Always go with local environmentally-friendly brands and not the one with a personal and violent vendetta against us, specifically."

Dirk breathes out a laugh, surprising himself. “Good.”

“Also, that was the stupidest test you could have done,” John comments. Dirk is surprised, and John snickers again. “You’ve been hanging around Jake so much recently that I thought you would have picked up on some espionage spy codes by now.”

“What are you implying?” Dirk asks, suspicious, and John gives him a genuinely confused look.

“What?”

“...Never mind. I just assumed I was appealing to the lowest common denominator here and didn’t want to pull anything too esoteric,” he says offhandedly, and John gives a shocked look, offended, before apparently deciding to take it as a joke and laughs again.

“You know, I didn’t want to say anything before, since we just met, but you’re kind of a huge dick! In a funny way I guess, but definitely dickish behavior,” he explains.

“...Yeah. Guess you’re right,” Dirk shrugs. There’s silence for a bit, because he doesn’t feel like that’s a good note to leave and end their conversation on. He racks his brain for what information he has on John, and lands on a statement that he probably should have said a lot sooner than this. “...I’m sorry that your grandmother died.”

John lets out a surprised chuckle, caught completely off guard. “Um, thanks? It wasn’t your fault. So. You um, don’t really have to apologize.” Then he goes quiet again, leaving Dirk to realize that this was the wrong move, that he miscalculated. This whole conversation was a mistake.

He’s about to go when John continues. “Have you ever lost someone?”

He pauses. That’s a very loaded question, and it’s something he doesn’t know if John should hear, at least not the full story. Only Porrim was allowed to know that. “It’s more like they lost me.”

“Oh,” John says, and waits for him to continue. Dirk does not. “So-”

“I might tell you about it later.” He cuts him off and breaks the connection, not to be curt, or rude, but because he got what he wanted and felt that he had nothing more to say.

As soon as he’s finished talking to John, the Danger Radar alerts start going batshit on the Dave end of his mind. He’s about to check up on it, come swooping to the rescue, but-

“Dirk! Are you ready to be present, yet? Cronus can’t close by himself!” Porrim calls to him with an edge in her voice, clearly annoyed. He has to pause a second before he can go see what Dave’s up to now and call back an answer.

“My bad,” he says. It’s about two in the morning, on a Sunday night, so there’s only a few people still here drinking by themselves and one group of college students that are getting way too loud. Porrim approaches him, and he braces himself for a lecture.

“Dirk. You know I like you. But if you were anybody else, anybody at all, I would’ve fired you by now. Hell, I wouldn’t have hired you in the first place. So get your act together.” She smacks his shoulder with a dishtowel.

“Of course, Porrim,” he says diligently, but she knows him well enough by now that she narrows her eyes, detecting his very subtle sarcasm. “I’ll get that group to leave,” he nods to the college students, a daunting prospect. She gives a terse nod and goes back behind the bar to start stacking things up for the night.

So it isn’t until after the fact that he figures out what happened to Dave, after the  _ danger _ alert has faded away into background noise and there are no more active threats. While he walks back to the motel he multitasks and walks next to Dave, who is speedwalking down the sidewalk, a sword in hand. He’s out of breath, and neither of his shoes are tied.

“Where are you going?” Dirk asks.

Dave glances at him sideways, the setting sun glinting in the reflection of his shades. “Bus station. It’s getting way too heated here, which I didn’t think was possible because it’s fucking Houston and if it gets less than a hundred degrees the space police show up and start forcing us all to use metal straws because something’s wrong with the planet. And if I see one more mafia fuck trying to get into my ass I’m gonna beg those aliens to take me with, because that’s how done I am with this.”

Dirk blinks. “So you got attacked again. Badly enough that you’re making a run for it.”

“Yeah, pretty much. ...Thank fucking god, there’s the station,” he says in relief as they turn a corner, and see the Greyhound station looming in the distance. “Almost there,” he reports to someone who isn’t Dirk, and then nods in response to something else.

“Am I missing something?” Dirk asks. He doesn’t see another member of their cluster, and while Dave is anxiously passing his phone back and forth between his hands, he can tell it’s not making any calls at the moment.

“What? Oh, I’ve got Karkat on the line. He’s meeting me there after he breaks into the apartment.” Dave crosses the street without looking or waiting, miraculously doesn't get hit, and then pauses and looks around before hurridly ducking through the doors and inside the building. “He should be here in just a sec.”

And a few moments later, a short man throws open the doors with no subtlety, much more out of breath than Dave had been. Dave gives him a little salute, and he scans the rows of benches waiting for busses and departures, spots Dave, and marches over to him directly. He shoves a backpack into his chest. “Here you  _ fucking _ go, ripped straight from the nightmare that is your place of dwelling, so I hope you’re grateful.”

“More than you’ll ever know,” Dave says, putting a hand over his heart in fake sincerity. “Dirk, this is Karkat. And this is another member of my cluster.”

“Don’t care, can’t see him,” Karkat mutters. “I should go before anybody questions how long I’ve been gone. You do have somewhere to go right? You’re not stupid enough to just get on any old bus and call it a day?”

“‘Course not. Rose is meeting me halfway there.”

“She’s going to love that,” Dirk comments. Dave grimaces.

“Just do me a favor and don’t encourage her. I’m not leaving because of my ‘bad homelife’,” he makes scare quotes, mocking her, “I was the one making things worse by staying there. Now the MC will have to get a different target.”

“It’ll be whoever’s in Washington,” Karkat says, and they both turn to stare at him. He glowers deeper under the scrutiny. “That’s where we- they’re going next, and I highly doubt it’s for vacation.”

Dirk suddenly pushes Karkat’s shoulder, making him stumble backwards. “So you’re working with them?”

Karkat rubs his shoulder and glares at Dave. “If that was you then I will actually slaughter you, and your entire cluster along with you. I am  _ not _ , I am an unwilling participant dragged along for the ride. Dave, we’ve been  _ over _ this.”

“Not me, dude,” Dave says, holding his hands up. Dirk crosses his arms and stares at both of them with cold eyes. “I figured you would prefer I didn’t tell the rest of the team that one of ‘em is your dad.”

“Well I  _ would _ have appreciated that gesture,” Karkat crosses his arms as well, mirroring Dirk, “if you hadn’t just thrown it out the fucking window with the rest of the trash. Yeah, Mr. Invisible, the crazy fuck with all the knives is my dad. Unfortunate, I know, but hey, you would be dead or worse by now if I wasn’t a gracious hub of highly classified intel, so generously sharing my knowledge with you at a tremendous risk to myself.”

“Washington, you said? That’s about what the Condesce told us herself.” Dirk says, straightfaced, disregarding all that. Karkat jerks his head down in a nod, still glaring. “Got any other intel?”

“They’re fucking pissed, now. They’re not going to go easy this time.”

“Noted, I’ll come up with a plan. You should talk to Rose.”

Dave gives him an offended look. “What wonderful advice, got any more where that came from?” Apparently that pressed a button.

“Yeah, actually, glad you asked. Keep your head down, get a jacket you’ve never worn before and keep the hood up. Keep your phone off unless absolutely necessary, but check it at least once a week. Get a watch. Don’t hang around bus stations if you’ve got more than thirty minutes between trips. Keep in contact with us, and you’ll probably be fine. But come to me first, and then Rose if you get any trouble.”

Somehow that seems to shut Dave up, as he frowns gently at the ground. Karkat is staring at Dave, somewhere between angry and anxious, darting his eyes to the empty areas around him as if he’ll somehow suddenly see Dirk and find out what made Dave quiet.

“Alright, thanks buddies, you can probably go now. I’ve got this handled,” Dave says. Karkat looks like he’s about to start quietly shouting again, so Dirk just nods and vanishes.

####  Part 7: Jake

Jane brain-skypes him as soon as she has landed in New Plymouth. He, of course, had not known that she was going to be even remotely in that area, and was surprised to say the least when he looked around her and saw the familiar landscape of flat discolored grass and the peak of Mount Taranaki in the distance.

“I… what? What the devil are you doing here, Jane?” he asks, spinning in a circle as he takes in the familiar view. She turns and waves off the jet plane behind her and her short black hair is whipped around her face as it propels itself back down the runway to refuel. “Should I be concerned?”

“No, no,” she smiles. “I just need… sanctuary. If you don’t mind.”

Jake is just confused. Last he heard, she was a danger and a liability to their group, on account of her being under Skaianet’s control. There was some sort of hullabaloo a few days ago where their compatriots went on a secret espionage mission to help her, but Jake hasn’t really been kept in the loop since. ...With any luck, they succeeded, or else he’s in a bit of trouble!

He holds up a finger to tell her to wait here for a second, and then walks into the next room in the bunker to where Serenity is hunched over a computer desk, alternating between writing things down on paper and squinting at the computer screen. Jake raps his knuckles on the doorframe, and she glances up at him. “Yes, Jake?”

“Jane Crocker has just landed at the airport. She says she requests sanctuary,” Jake says. “I was wondering if you had any strong feelings on it.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath, standing up and walking past him, out of the room. He follows her as she continues down the metal reinforced hallway towards the live camera feeds. “...Jake. I’m only going to ask you this once: Why the  _ hell _ are you in contact with Jane Crocker?”

“Oh, well, see…” Jake isn’t sure that he has an answer to that. He would normally say ‘business associate,’ seeing as they’re both important figures, but of course Serenity would know that isn’t true. “We text,” he says weakly.

“Phone. Now,” she says, holding out her hand. She has to stop walking, and Jake almost runs into her. He almost protests, but she gives him a hard look and he just hands it over. She gives him a reproachful look before turning away and continuing into their destination. While she walks he can see her unlocking the phone and scrolling through his recent texts. Not looking back at him, she asks, “Jake, why are you lying?”

It’s the disappointment in her voice that bothers Jake. He shrugs, avoiding eye contact. “...Because the truth just doesn’t make a lick of sense?”

Jane appears next to him. “How’s it going? Am I getting a ride to the preserve or am I walking?” Jake jumps and gestures for her to be quiet. “Jake, I’ve just run away from an evil stepmother and then spent twelve hours on a plane. I don’t have anywhere else to go where Meenah won’t find me, can I please just spend the night in your super safe underground bunker?”

Serenity almost speaks, but Jake cuts her off. “All that matters is she needs help right now. She’s on our side, and we need to go pick her up!” Jane stands next to him and nods imploringly at Serenity.

“I can’t do that until you tell me what’s going on, Jake,” she sighs.

“Can I talk to her?” Jane asks. Jake shrugs, he doesn’t actually know if she  _ can _ , but she’s free to try. “Serenity, was it? This is Jane Crocker speaking and I promise that I can explain more once I am safe. To make a long story short, I'm one of the voices in Jake’s head.” She smiles non-threateningly, which on her is a very practiced expression for the cameras.

Serenity stares at Jake with a look of confusion that starts slowly dipping into concern.

“You can also call me yourself, if you would like,” Jane adds, and lists her phone number. “I’ll even turn on my phone, it’s been off all day.”

“...Jake, I don’t speak Japanese. But neither do you.”

“Oh, shucks, wait, I can speak English too!” Jane says in English this time, her face going red. Jake snickers. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. But, um, is that enough proof for you?”

Serenity doesn’t respond and starts typing things on her phone, leaving them to stare at her in suspense. She mutters, finally, “I’ll have a car sent.”

“Thank you!” Jane clasps her hands together.

She vanishes and Jake shakes himself, feeling strange in a way that he can’t describe. His throat feels tingly. Serenity gives him a reproachful look, and then sets off towards the wall of camera feeds. She flicks through a few channels, but Jake can’t see anything unusual about any of them, and Serenity doesn’t seem to either.

She huffs in frustration, and leaves to venture further into the bunker, gesturing for Jake to come with her. A few doors down there’s a room filled with filing cabinets, and Serenity paces down the middle until she finds the one she wants to unlock and rifles through it.

Triumphantly, she holds up a folder. “Jane Crocker! This is all the info we have on her. It doesn’t say that she can possess people, or has any other supernatural abilities to speak of, unfortunately. But neither do you, according to what we know in  _ your _ file.”

Jake rubs the back of his neck. “It’s a, erm, recent development. We’ve been calling it psychic powers, but Jade yells at us if we call them that.”

“Jade?” Serenity asks, her eyebrow raised. Jake nods and rifles through the same drawer of files Jane’s was in, and does indeed find one on Jade Harley like he hoped there would be, maybe half the thickness of Jane’s. He pulls it out, and hands it to her. She scans it and opens her eyes wide. “Jade  _ Harley _ ?”

“Yes! There’s more, but I doubt you have files on any of them, none of the others are famous. ...Except Dave, I think, has a decent sized Youtube channel for his music, but that’s, erm, not relevant.”

She puts the two files away and closes the drawer, locking it up again. “So you can talk to each other in your heads? And possess each other?” Jake hesitates, but nods. That’s the basics, yes. “And that’s why the heiress to our greatest threat has decided to come here specifically?”

“She’s really a nice girl,” Jake defends. He remembers the first time they spoke, when he first saw her as someone like him rather than a figurehead or an icon for some supercompany, without a real person underneath.

“I’m sure,” Serenity says flatly. “She can stay at the estate, in one of the guest rooms. But I’ll have to confiscate her phone and any other communication devices, and she’ll have to be under surveillance at all times. Don’t tell her about the bunker, or anything that we do here. Understand?”

He frowns, but yes, that does seem reasonable, so he agrees. Though, he keeps it to himself that Jane definitely already knows about all this. On the bright side, Jane hadn’t been wearing the tiaratop when he last saw her, which can only be a good thing, but he wishes people would keep him better in the loop on these sorts of things. Is it really too much to ask whether or not his guest is still brainwashed? Would it really be so troublesome to have some sort of group meeting every now and then? Jake thinks  _ not _ .

“Well, we’ve got an hour or two before she arrives. Come with me, and we can start making some arrangements. I’ve got a lot to share with you.”

Before Jane had come to him, today was supposed to be the day that Jake was ‘initiated’ into the organization that his gran started, to serve as some of the world’s only opposition to Meenah Peixes. They built this cool bunker facility underneath the wildlife preserve, and… well, that’s sort of all Jake knows about it at this point.

Serenity leads him out of the bunker, which surprises him. They emerge out of the exit in the fireplace, shutting it behind them, and the tour starts in Jake’s head office.

“First, I need you to promise me that we’re alone right now, and that Jane Crocker or Jade Harley aren’t listening in on this. Or anyone else, for that matter,” she orders, waiting expectantly.

He considers it, trying to feel where everyone is, but they all seem either busy or fast asleep. Jane isn’t eavesdropping, and he puts up mental walls to dissuade anyone from visiting. Basically, a glorified Do Not Disturb mode. He nods firmly to Serenity, who returns the gesture and takes a deep breath before expositing.

“Judy English and her father founded the preserve, to combat poaching and keep endangered species alive. It was localized to New Zealand, Australia, and other island nations, but it kept growing larger and building branches out into the world. There are locations now on all seven continents, and English Wildlife Preserves is a household name.”

Jake knows all of this. “Yes?”

“This was back when the Peixes were just a very rich family from America. Before Meenah was around and bent on conquering the world, one company at a time. She amassed more and more of her fortune, through any means necessary, and when she tried to buy out the preserve, she was denied something for the first time in her life.”

“How old is she, anyhow?” Jake asks, raising his hand. “That seems like quite a full life, especially if that was years ago!”

She scrunches her face. “That isn’t public knowledge, she’s kept her birthdate a secret from the world, and her annual birthday gala is in a different month every year. But according to our files? She’s got to be in her late fifties, if not sixties.”

He blinks in surprise. He would never have called her anything much more than thirty, and he would have said lower if he didn’t know she was Feferi’s mother and therefore couldn’t be that much younger.

“Suspicious, right?” Serenity smiles. “She’s got to know something we don’t. But that’s besides the point, interesting as it is. It’s about those men who came after you, the Midnight Crew. They’ve been here before, making threats and carrying some out.”

“Aha! So that’s what started the resistance!” he snaps his fingers, grinning. “You had to stand up to the face of tyranny! Fight for the people and the freedom of the world!” Jake’s whole day has been made, no, his whole year. This is perfect, what he’d always dreamed of, superpowers and espionage and global conspiracies with their resistances… Yeah. It’s all coming together.

Serenity shrugs, smiling. “More or less. And now, Jane could be exactly what we need, or she could be the end of us. If she is as you say she is, running away and looking for sanctuary, then I may have the final piece to sway her to our cause. But I’ll wait to share that, until we know if she’s sincere or not. And if she’s not...” she trails off, frowning.

Jake waits for her to continue, but she does not. Instead, she pulls a ring of keys out of her pocket, and hands it to him. “Thank you!” he says earnestly, though he isn’t sure what they go to.  _ Probably _ the bunker, and all the secrets contained within.

“Keep these with you, don’t let her touch them. From now on, you might want to keep arms with you too, you still remember your Gran’s firearm training?”

“How could I forget!”

“Good.”

Later, after Jane arrives and she is neatly settled in a guest room sans communication devices, Jake lowers his mental walls and calls out to everyone.

“Group meeting! Group meeting, please, friends!” Jane looks over at him with a raised eyebrow, but indulges him and sits down. He’s taken them to one of the board meeting rooms, which looks empty with just the two of them in it. This is momentarily remedied when five other bodies join the table. ...Wait. He does a headcount, yes, five, that only brings them to seven. Who… He frowns and does a mental checklist, and then asks, “Where is Rose?”

Dave speaks up from his lounged position draped over the armrests of his chair and rolls his eyes. They can sense him doing it, even if they can’t actually see it behind the shades. “She and I are playing the world’s worst game of telephone, worse than if we tied two cans together with a string long enough to go from wherever the fuck I am to New York. Seriously. Not even exaggerating.”

“Dave, that doesn’t answer the question at all?” Jane asks, folding her hands on top of the table in an artificial, practiced look of concern.

“Aren’t you evil?” Dave retorts. Jake hits his palms on the table as a gesture of authority. He’s in control now, it’s him.

“That, my old chum, is exactly what we are discussing today! So if Rose were here that would be swell.” He looks around at everyone, to see if someone actually wants to answer, before Dave huffs and explains.

“She’s taking these hardcore drugs now, so she can’t talk. Is what I’m getting from what she told me. I have to talk to this dude I met last week and then he talks to Rose’s new girlfriend or whatever and then she passes it along. And then it goes backwards. It’s a goddamn nightmare.”

Jade frowns. “Dave, do you mean blockers? Where would she get blockers from?”

“Hey, just really quick, what’s a blocker?” John asks before Dave can answer, or not answer, judging by the shrug he gives.

“Oh! It’s a pill that temporarily deactivates a Sensate’s abilities!” Jade answers. “So only Sensates use them, and I don’t know where Rose would get any. Unless her, uh, girlfriend has some. Or maybe her mom?”

“Probably,” Dave shrugs again.

“It might be a good idea for all of us to get a supply of those,” Dirk comments with his arms crossed on his chest. “And by the way, she’s asleep,” he inclines his head towards Roxy, who somehow no one noticed was slumped back in her chair with her head hanging over the edge. It’s a miracle she was even in a chair at all, or was summoned in the first place. Jade sees her and her eyes alight with interest, so Jake needs to put a stop to that diversion before it starts.

“Good to know, thank you very much, that is not what we’re discussing,” Jake says. “If someone wants to wake her up, please, go right on ahead.”

“Then what’s this about?” John asks, confused.

“I just think that we need to communicate better, is all!” Jake explains. “For instance, it would be absolutely fantastic to know who is and who is not brainwashed, or if we’re in danger, or if some other catastrophe is affecting the group. Am I the only one who wants to know what’s been happening around here lately?”

Jane, John, and Jade share a look, and surprisingly, Dirk does too. Jake is confused by that, so he stares at Dirk patiently until he explains. “I personally vetted everyone here and they are clear for brainwashing or at least making an effort.” He looks to Jane last, then back at Jake. “Can’t say the same for Feferi.”

“...Well, thanks,” Jake says, while John creeps around the table to stand behind Roxy. He reaches to his left and pulls a plastic water bottle out of seemingly nowhere. Jake decides he’s going to let this happen. Might as well, at this point, after all. “Where are you then, Jade? If Jane came here by herself?”

“Going to Greece with Feferi! Her idea, but me and Jane and Roxy all agreed to it. And Dirk was convinced eventually,” she sticks out her tongue. Dirk is unfazed.

“And what are you up to, Dave?” Jake asks, poking his head in and seeing Dave hunched with his knees to his chest and a large backpack on the seat next to him. “Where are you?”

“Somewhere in Louisiana at this point, pretty sure. Got kicked out because the Midnight Crew was causing problems. Rose is driving down to meet me somewhere, hence the telephone game.”

“Great!” Jake exclaims, and Dave raises an eyebrow in offense. “Not that you got kicked out, or any of this other stuff! But we’re communicating, aren’t we? Can we all just agree to keep everyone in the loop from now on? I’m tired of never knowing what’s happening.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dave says, and then he’s gone. John dumps the water bottle onto Roxy’s face, and then he promptly vanishes as well. Roxy wakes up sputtering, but the water wasn’t hers so she doesn’t actually choke. At least that’s something.

When he looks back to Dirk, he’s gone as well, and Jade offers him a smile before following suit. Roxy looks around in bewilderment, her eyes squinted and unfocused, and then she falls back asleep. Her image fades away more gradually than the others’ instant disappearances.

It’s just him and Jane left. “...I feel good about that!” Jake says. Jane rolls her eyes at him and has to leave the manual way, standing and walking out of the room.

####  Part 8: Roxy

Today hasn’t been a great day, to be honest. Just, this weekend in general. There’s been a lot, and everything continues to happen with no sign of stopping. Just when she thought they were in the clear with Jane, they had to push their luck, and ended up with three displaced Sensates scattering themselves around the world, and then not even a full twelve hours later Dave and Rose got into their very own trouble. Dirk’s running himself ragged trying to handle it all by himself, she can feel his exhaustion from here, and Jake is walking on eggshells trying to balance his personal life and his connection to Jane.

Roxy, meanwhile, has reproached on her promise with Dave and is sipping a mimosa alone in her room, while her computer plays makeup tutorials as background noise to think to. Her sunglasses are on again, and truth be told she’s been nervous to take them off ever since she learned how badly Callie’s dad wanted her to. She might never take them off again, clear vision be damned.

Roxy still hasn’t talked to Callie about her dad being evil yet. She kinda gets the feeling she already knows, even if it’s not to the full extent.

She heaves a sigh and downs the rest of the drink, standing up from her wooden dormitory chair. Maybe some fresh air would be good for her, she thinks, and because it’s cold outside after dark she puts on some high waisted jeans under a turtleneck, and slides a flask of gin into her purse. For warmth. Then she looks at herself in the mirror, reconsiders, and decides the turtleneck looks weird on her shoulders, so she changes into a regular knit sweater that exposes her collarbones and heads out before she can second guess herself some more.

The girl’s dormitory isn’t quiet at this time of night, she can hear laughing, some yelling, and music from behind doors in her hallway, people having a much better time than she is right now. She makes her way down the single flight of stairs to the ground floor with one hand firmly gripping the railing and her feet carefully and deliberately making each step while her head floats somewhere above her body.

The cold air outside sends a shock to her system, and while Roxy takes a deep breath, she can feel her senses sharpen again and she can also feel where the cold gets to her nose and the tips of her ears. She takes a swig of gin, and the effect lessens. She starts walking, nowhere in particular, but she knows the area well enough that even if she tried to get herself lost, she wouldn’t be able to manage it. Even though everything on campus looks the same, just trees on grass with sidewalks winding their way through under street lamps, she would know the way back with her eyes closed.

There’s a really lovely spot on a terrace up a ways, where there are stone benches and a ledge to look over the majority of campus, and the city of Marseille behind it. Roxy can usually count on it being vacant, especially since it’s getting colder as the night goes on, and most people have retired. Class tomorrow, ya know? Not that Roxy particularly cares about that.

She looks out over the ledge to admire the view, all the little lights glowing in the dark, and then lays down on her back with her hair splayed everywhere, one leg hanging off the ledge and over the sizeable drop. She pulls out her phone and holds it above her face, making sure that it’s connected to school wi-fi.

The Google homepage stares at her for a minute, while she makes up her mind, and then she starts googling some names.  _ Dr. Andrew Scratch _ leads to an outdated and mostly blank professor’s biography for some university in England. It states that he has two Ph.D’s and is from England, and that he had been teaching for ten years, but retired at least a decade ago. Really helpful, thanks, nothing that Rose hadn’t already shared with them. Nothing about his work, or what he taught, or what he’s been doing since then. She looks up  _ Rachel Lalonde _ next, reading while she chews her lips, and raises her eyebrows as she learns that Rose’s mom went to university in France, to study physics. That’s where Roxy lives!

Now she gets to the real stuff.  _ Sensates, homosensorium, are sensates real, real psychic powers, hivemind humans,  _ etc. She doesn’t find a lot. In fact, the results that she does get are behind a blocked paywall, a few academic files of which the author’s names have been redacted and its contents hidden or otherwise eradicated from the internet. Roxy huffs and blows a piece of hair out of her face.

So, no academic sources. None of that official, easy shit. All that she’s left with is message boards and old forums to wade through on the off chance she finds something useful, instead of crazy people or worse, pre-teen’s roleplaying boards.

What she does end up finding is, indeed, pre-teen messaging boards, but they’re pretty old, and as she scrolls down she sees that a few of them actually are describing something that could, in theory, actually be real. Fucking Yahoo Answers ends up being the one she needs, titled ‘ _ Has anyone else ever heard of a Sensate?’ _ and she has to pray that whoever it is still uses the same username for everything. That theory seems promising, as she can find the username, but only under a private account and only through her fancy modified Pesterchum app that she programmed herself with some adblockers and proxys, everything she could think of to add right before deprogramming Jane. Getting a message through to this guy is a piece of cake after getting herself safely away from the Condescension’s cyber-clutches.

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering  twinArmageddons [TA]

TG: hi! um, srry to bother you, but i was wondering what you found out about senates, if anything.  
TG: *sensates oops  
TG: i saw your post on yahoo answers from like a million years ago  
TG: …  
TG: helloooo???

twinArmageddons [TA] began pestering  tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TA: fuckiing CHRII2T that ii2 old  
TA: who the fuck are you and why are you diigiing around my anciient 2hiit?  
TG: hi!!  
TG: why do YOU think i was tryin to google that  
TG: i mean logcially  
TG: *logically  
TG: i think we have something in common :?  
TA: never make that face agaiin plea2e. and if you actually want two talk iit cant be on here and youre goiing two have two prove your2elf fir2t.  
TA: actually, you 2houldnt have been able two me22age me at all  
TA: my network ii2 2ecure as 2hit  
TG: yeah! well i’m kinda a hacker so i just got in bc this seems like a solid way to get some answers ya feel  
TG: straight from the sauce  
TG: *source  
TG: *nah i like the sauce better  
TG: you should up your security if youre so uptight about it  
TG: ive got some apps you could use, designed by me personally so you know theyre secure  
TA: why would that make me feel more 2ecure, 2eem2 2u2piiciiou2 iif you a2k me  
TG: depends if youre hiding from the same people im hiding from  
TG: bc in that case, strength in numbers babey  
TA: but ii2 iit worth it?  
TA: you 2eem in2ufferable  
TA: no offen2e  
TG: offense!!  
TA: hang on ii got your phone number  
TG: wait dont call how do you think thats gonna work  
TG: like do you speak french or is your phone just auto-tanraslyting like mine  
TG: *translating jeez  
TA:  
TA: 2o you dont 2peak englii2h?  
TG: lol nope  
TG: never needed to before recently :/  
TA: chrii2t okay  
TG: u sound american  
TG: no offense  
TG: but the world does not revolve around you and your dumb language  
TA: ii gue22.  
TA: get a tran2later and then we can talk  
TA: iif youre worth talkiing to then youll be able to fiind one riight now  
TG: fien  
TG: *fine

Roxy doubtfully raises an eyebrow at her phone and closes out of Pesterchum when it doesn’t seem like the mystery Sensate (presumably) is going to say anything else. She waits for a second, and then her phone does ring, with a number from somewhere she knows is not France. She hisses a breath and winces, but accepts the bill she’s going to have to pay for an overseas call in exchange for potentially vital information. And a possible ally, if they aren’t as ornery as they sound over text.

As she answers the phone she sits up on the stone ledge and lets both her legs hang over. She reaches to the side and grabs her now-official translator, John, by the sleeve and physically pulls him to France.

“Hmm?” he asks, confused. She passes him the phone, and he puts it to his ear and asks, probably out of ingrained politeness procedures, “Hello?”

She can understand the voice on the other end through courtesy of John. “Is this tipsygnostalgic?”

John shoots her look and she nods, so he says, “Yes it is!”

“Ask if he’s the Yahoo answers guy, twinarmageddons.”

“Is this, um, the Yahoo guy?”

She  _ hears _ the eyeroll. “Ugh. Yes,” the voice answers, masculine but nasally and with a strong lisp. “And only one of you has to speak, the other one just has to be a language filter. Goddamn amateurs. I don’t need to hear some French chick muttering to herself every time.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit of an asshole?” Roxy asserts.

“Yes. Absolutely they have,” he answers. John holds the phone in between them, bemused but still very confused. “You can call me Sollux, by the way. Don’t use your full name for security’s sake, but who are you?”

“Roxy. And, um, this is John translating.”

“Didn’t ask. Why are we having this conversation?”

She glances sideways at John, who also watches her expectantly. “Well, we’re both, ah, you know! ...Aren’t we?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“Mostly?” she asks. There’s silence on the other end, so she just shrugs at John and moves on, twirling her hair in knots around her fingers. John holds the phone between them, and since putting it on speakerphone doesn’t sound very safe, they each bend in close to hear. “...Well, I was wondering if there was any kind of Sen-you-know community that we need to, like, sign up for? How do we find others without looking on Yahoo answers?”

Sollux mutters to himself, “Oh my god,” in an exasperated sigh. “You’re seriously bothering me about  _ that _ right now? That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard of. We’re being hunted down on a global scale, dumbass. We aren’t going to make it  _ easy _ for them.”

John and Roxy share a surprised look, and before he can hang up Roxy says, “Wait! Tell me more about that! Who, exactly, is doin’ that and what do they want!”

“You know,” Sollux says, sarcastically pretending to take the question seriously, “I didn’t really think to  _ ask _ while I was strapped down to an operating table, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“Oh, are you okay?” John asks, tactful as ever.

Sollux repeats, “Mostly, yes.” He doesn’t say anything else for a while, then he sighs with the edge of a growl in his voice. “Ugh. You seem like you’re just as stupid as we were when we hatched.” John mouths the word ‘hatched’ at Roxy, who shrugs. “So I’ll send you the handle of someone who would be more willing to explain this to dumb children. I do  _ not  _ have the patience for this.”

The line clicks off. Roxy puts her phone into her purse without looking at it, staring off into middle distance with a frown on her face. John watches her until he can’t be quiet for another second, then says, “That guy sucked, huh?”

“Yeah,” Roxy says.

“We should probably-”

“I don’t know why anything can’t ever be easy,” she groans, leaning her full weight to the side and falling across John’s lap. “I was like hey, maybe I can do the detective thing and find some answers, but I don’t even know the questions yet! What the fuck are we even  _ doing _ here, John?”

John’s eyes are wide, like he doesn’t know what to do now. “Like existentially?” he asks. “We don’t really know that, Roxy! And yeah we have superpowers, but does that mean that we have some larger purpose in using them? ...Probably not! It’s just a thing that happened. And if it didn’t, I wouldn’t have met all these cool friends, so,” he shrugs, “I’m not really going to question it.” Now it’s John who looks away, at nothing in particular, and Roxy turns over so she can face him while she lounges across his legs.

“John, that was actually pretty philosophical,” she says. “Didn’t make me feel better, but. Totes impressed.” It takes him a second to come back to the present, but he glances down at her and his face turns red.

“...I guess,” he shrugs. “Let’s just try not to get murdered or whatever that dude was talking about. Did he send the handle?”

She sits up and digs her phone out of her purse, and she does have a new message from Sollux. It’s just the handle,@gallowsCalibrator, and then another message saying that she has been blocked.

Hmm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh! I love writing this but it takes soooo long, and Nanowrimo is coming up next month and I use that for original fiction, so... This might be on a lil unofficial hiatus until like December at the very earliest? Most likely January! Also, I just started college again, and this was supposed to be ready like two weeks ago. Time is hard.
> 
> Love you all! <3 leave a comment if you wanna, it seriously makes my day

**Author's Note:**

> Unsurprisingly, Rose is easiest to write. Jake is by far the hardest, if anyone has advice on him, it'd be much appreciated. I thought Jane would be difficult, I don't know her character as well, but she has the most Plot Related Shit so I really like writing her sections! Roxy and Dirk come surprisingly naturally to write, Harleyberts I have more struggles with :/
> 
> Anyways, I have almost all of chapter 2 written right now, but i'd rather wait to post it until most of chapter 3 is written! Sooo that'll either be in 2 weeks or in 3 months, anytime between then. In the meantime feel absolutely free to comment and tell me what you think, and also you can yell at me from my tumblr @robinheartz, and on there my "hs" tag is full of headcanons, fun things, and a lotta art that influenced this. Have at me


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